


Lover is a Day

by le_mru



Series: Three Imaginary Boys [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Sirius Black, But I'm shameless and I like this arc, Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, First War with Voldemort, Gay Remus Lupin, I might have written my third iteration of the same story, Jealous Sirius Black, M/M, POV Remus Lupin, Post-Hogwarts, This goes AU at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 23:40:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20281795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_mru/pseuds/le_mru
Summary: It's 1979. Over the course of two weeks, Remus Lupin meets Regulus Black three times and takes him for Sirius two of those times.Or: Sirius has been taking care of him since they were twelve, and Remus wonders if anyone is taking care of Regulus at all, and if not--he might have to take up that job.





	Lover is a Day

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Vardøger](https://archiveofourown.org/works/299181) by [le_mru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_mru/pseuds/le_mru). 

1.

When Remus wakes, Sirius isn’t in bed anymore.

He rolls over and stretches out his arm on reflex, but the other side of the mattress has already gone cold. The sheets smell like they need a washing despite how chaste last night was: they went to sleep like siblings, side by side, under separate blankets.

It’s half past seven. Remus sighs and sits up to look through the dirty window at the equally dirty city and the autumn that has stolen in, unseen, over the past week. The city is grey and groggy, and he sympathizes.

Sirius is in the kitchen, making breakfast. A charmed copy of _The Daily Telegraph_ is hovering to his left and Sirius is squinting at it fiercely as he fries eggs. He’s been cultivating an odd fascination with Muggle politics since he moved into this neighbourhood, which has resulted in pestering Remus with thousands of questions about the bloody Tories.

“You’re up early,” Remus says, taking a seat and huffing into his cold hands.

Sirius, the human furnace, is dressed in a T-shirt with its sleeves torn off and a suspicious hole under his left armpit. His cheek, from what Remus can see from this vantage point, is pleasantly pink.

“You know what they say,” he says without turning. “The early worm. Or the early bird. Something or other.” He whirls away from the stove with the teapot in his hand. “Have a cuppa. You look like someone’s just walked over your grave.”

“Thanks, Padfoot.” Maybe someone has. Remus sniffles. “And let’s turn up the heat a bit, maybe.”

“Nonsense. You just need to eat.” Sirius whirls back around, this time handling plates stacked with food. He sets them down with a clank, then clinks some glasses together, tosses the frying pan into the sink. He’s all loud sounds and vivid images, completely overwhelming to Remus’ tender early-morning senses.

They eat in silence, knees pressed pleasantly together under the narrow table. _The Daily Telegraph_ hovers precariously over the hot stove, flapping a little, until Sirius reaches back and makes a swiping gesture with his wand, and the newspaper drops onto the worktop.

“So,” he says, munching on a piece of sausage. His hair is gathered in a haphazard knot at the top of his head and it’s ridiculous and endearing at the same time. “The party’s today.”

Remus groans. He’s forgotten entirely about McKinnon’s ridiculous ‘class of 78 get-together’ party that will inevitably end with someone retching into Marlene’s bathtub and tearful admissions of how brilliant it was to attend school together.

“What time is it? Eight?”

“It starts at seven, but.” Sirius swallows and washes the sausage down with orange juice. “I’d say we make it eightish.”

Remus nods and nibbles on his toast. Sirius’ penchant for dramatic entrances requires premeditated late arrivals.

“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Sirius says, noncommittally. “You know.”

“I know.”

Sirius probably wants to believe he is giving Remus a way out of a social event Remus is going to detest, but he’s not, not really. Remus knows exactly what’s going to happen if he declines: Sirius will pretend he’s okay with that, then fall silent, sulk through the day, get more and more annoyed by the hour until he emerges ridiculously angry in the evening and slams the door on his way out. If Remus doesn’t begrudgingly appear at the party and have a good time at least for a little while, he’ll make a scene, but it’s all going to be in good faith,_ you have to get out more, Moony, it’s good for you to be around people, you sodding recluse, you_.

He sighs wearily.

“No, we, um. We should go. Everyone’s going to be there.”

Sirius perks up like Padfoot does when someone mentions a walk.

“Well, we could stay in if you’re not in the mood,” he says magnanimously. “Watch something on the--telly or--”

“It’s okay, let’s go.”

Sirius’ knee bumps against his affectionately and when he’s ready to leave for work he leans in and kisses Remus on the mouth. It’s a short kiss--just means of showing approval--but Remus instantly wants more, as always.

He reads on the sofa until noon and then floos to the bookshop. It’s so quiet there it’s easy to fall into a kind of lethargy, where one just moves between the teapot and the heaps of books with no regard to the outside world. He almost misses the clock chiming seven and has to hurry home, where Sirius has already begun his complicated routine of putting a lot of effort into appearing as if he has not put in any effort whatsoever.

They arrive fashionably late, about ten past eight, to the yard in front of the McKinnons’ house. Marlene’s parents are in the States, ostensibly visiting family, but Remus suspects it’s for another reason, namely one that has more to do with them being Muggleborn. Marlene is, ostensibly, completing Auror training in Coventry.

The house is already brimming with people. When they enter, a charmed banner comes down from the ceiling of the hall and two trumpet-bearing cherubs appear: _Class of ‘77 get-together_, screams the banner, and the cherubs play a jaunty tune. It’s completely over the top and Sirius is delighted.

“A proper party, yes,” he hisses, jolting the grocery bag containing the beer they bought, and the bottles answer with a resounding clink. “Let’s find the Prongses.”

He deposits the beer in the kitchen while Remus winds between people, bottles, snack bowls and records in his search for Lily and James. They’re in the living room, so full of Gryffindors and red-and-gold memorabilia that it looks like the Gryffindor common room. To add to the ambience, James has just launched into retelling one of their ill-fated fifth-year pranks. Remus plops down next to Lily on the sofa and communicates with her through a set of non-verbal signals that they’re both here and they’re okay, or as okay as they currently can be.

Sirius comes in after a few minutes and squats down on the armrest, a sliver of pink knee peeking out of his torn jeans. As James’ story winds down, Remus watches Sirius out of the corner of his eye: fidgeting with his rings, tapping his foot against the floor, tucking his hair behind his ear. And the people watching him, all around them, because Sirius draws attention to himself as naturally as he breathes. It brings Remus some very petty and slightly shameful satisfaction that it is him Sirius is eventually going home with.

“--and for that Remus Lupin, who usually refrains from using any kind of foul language, called us _fucking twats_,” James finishes with a flourish.

There are some gasps of indignation and surprise among the laughter.

“And you deserved it,” Remus says, taking an exaggerated bow.

There’s a brief scuffle at the stereo as someone bravely fights Marlene for the right to play disco followed by a very silly Hogwarts trivia competition conducted by Dorcas Meadowes. Remus participates half-heartedly; he’s not too keen to reheat nostalgia over their school years, because it’s not going to bring anything other than heartache, but it still beats attempting not to talk about the dark cloud that is hanging over them. After a while, the disco enthusiast succeeds at throwing on some Donna Summer and Sirius exits the room with an ostentatious air.

Remus lifts himself up from the sofa and goes looking for Peter, who hasn’t showed hide nor hair the whole evening. He finds him in the kitchen, struggling with a wine opener, ruddy in the cheeks with effort.

“Rough night?”

“Ugh, yeah.” Peter pulls ineffectively at the cork. “Rough day, rough night. Y’know.”

Peter works night shifts as a guard at one of the active henges and takes care of his sick mom during the days. They’ve been trying to help--James’ been sending him money in the guise of presents for his mom and Remus has made him chicken broth and taken him out to the movies a few times, but it just takes so much effort and it doesn’t really seem like Peter’s grind is ending anytime soon, so.

Peter wins the second edition of the competition thanks to Remus stage-whispering some of the answers to him. Sirius is still unaccounted for: he’s not with the kitchen crowd nor the bathroom crowd, which leaves the yard. Remus pulls on his coat and walks underneath the banner and the cherubs, pushing through a crowd of rowdy newcomers.

It’s chilly outside. He follows the stone walkway around the house, hands in his pockets, shoulders raised against the cold. He expects to see a group of smokers in the backyard, but there’s only one person at the end of the path overlooking the pond. Jacket collar popped, hip cocked, cigarette a red point in the dark.

“Aren’t you coming inside already?” Remus calls out. The figure doesn’t turn, just flicks ash onto the ground with its left hand.

Remus shifts from foot to foot and palms the wand in his pocket, suddenly uneasy.

“Sirius?” he asks, coming up from the side, and once Sirius turns, his face is eerily transformed into a less refined version of itself: the nose broader, eyes wider apart, chin softer. “Ugh, sorry--”

“You seem confused, Lupin,” Regulus says, looking him up and down in a condescending manner. “Everything all right?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah. Sorry. From the back, you looked just like--” he breaks off, not wanting to admit aloud that he took Regulus for Sirius. It seems inappropriate. “Sorry. I had no idea you were invited to this party.”

“Well, I am a Hogwarts alum now too,” Regulus replies lightly. He scrabbles for something in the pocket of his jacket--it’s not leather at all, Remus notices now, but an expensive-looking velvety fabric he can’t name--and produces a pack of cigarettes. “Fancy a smoke?”

Remus did not only miss that Regulus finished school, but also that he smokes, apparently. What’s worse, he’s just this side of tipsy to actually want to smoke.

He accepts the cigarette. Regulus strikes a flame with his middle finger and thumb and Remus leans in to it. He’s done this hundreds of times with Sirius but it feels clandestine and precarious now.

“I actually didn’t know it would turn out to be a Gryffindor party,” Regulus says, flicking his cigarette stub into the pond. “I just realized when we arrived. Wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

“I can imagine,” Remus replies, trying to keep the vitriol out of his voice. He does remember seeing several faces he used to associate with the younger years as he was leaving, but no one specific. He takes a breath. “I don’t believe the presence of Slytherins is going to be taken all that well around here.”

Regulus makes a face.

“I’m aware. That’s why I’m out here. It’s not all Slytherins though, if you believe it.”

Remus does believe it. He recalls that Regulus used to have an academic streak--at least compared to his delinquent of a brother--and ran with a group of Ravenclaws back in Hogwarts. When he wasn’t intercepted by the Pureblood posse, that is.

He takes a puff of the cigarette and makes a noncommittal noise in his throat. Regulus looks at him sharply and it’s so much like the searching expression Sirius regards him with sometimes that Remus holds his breath.

“I just wanted to feel normal, you know?” Regulus says and Remus nods. “Just for a few hours. Seems silly now.”

Remus looks at the ground out of fear that his expression mirrors Regulus’. He gets the sentiment perfectly. The need to fit in, for one. To pretend that they’re just normal young people, doing things that normal young people do, for another.

He snorts. The noise is loud in the autumn evening. Regulus looks at him questioningly, suddenly wary. Remus doesn’t say that this might be the longest conversation they have ever had, as it seems beside the point.

In the house behind them, raised voices suddenly drown out the cheer and the music. They both look over their shoulders and sure enough, there are now steps coming down the walkway. It’s Sirius, jacket open, the lapels flapping about, his hair wild about his face.

“Moony, I was looking for--what are you doing here?” he snaps at Regulus.

“Just chatting,” Regulus replies lazily, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his posh jacket. Remus cannot believe now how he could have mistaken him for Sirius. “Don’t get your knickers in a bunch. I wasn’t about to steal your boyfriend.”

Remus freezes. Sirius’ face changes unpleasantly as he takes in the whole ensemble: the pond, them standing over it shoulder to shoulder, the cigarette smouldering in Remus’ hand.

“As if you had the bollocks for it,” Sirius shoots back, but it lacks conviction. “Seems like you were leaving. Those tossers you came with are getting kicked out as we speak.”

“I did not expect anything else to happen,” Regulus says and while it was probably meant as sarcastic it sounds a little sad. He turns to Remus with an indecipherable expression on his face. “See you around, Lupin. Surprisingly good talking to you.”

He walks away, his shoulder brushing against Sirius’ on the way, as if he wanted to hit him with it but reconsidered. Remus frowns as watches his soft, elegant gait and try as he might cannot shake off the strange feeling of familiarity and warmth that this conversation has brought up in him. Then it dawns on him: it’s not the similarity, at least not just that. Sirius’ little brother is, apparently, queer.

Sirius stalks closer to Remus and huffs accusingly.

“Have you been smoking? What the hell, Moony?”

“You smoke all the time.” Remus looks at him defiantly. “Doesn’t seem like a crime.”

“How did he know about us?” Sirius crowds him in and Remus takes a step back.

“Well, we live together, Padfoot. It doesn’t take a genius.”

“What did he want from you anyway?”

“He just wanted to talk, that’s all.”

“With you?”

“We’re acquaintances. I’m seeing his brother, aren’t I? What’s with all these questions?”

Sirius scowls unattractively.

“Acquaintances! He’s not just that, Moony. He’s a little Death--”

“You don’t know that for sure, Sirius. He came here with a bunch of Ravenclaws--”

“I am quite sure--”

“--just wanted to talk to someone who would not start throwing insults into his face the moment he sees him, I don’t see how that--”

“I just don’t want him getting his grubby fingers on my things!” Sirius yells and from the way his mouth clamps shut straight afterwards he immediately realises his mistake.

“Your things?” Remus repeats with venom, drawing himself to his full height, which gives him the satisfaction of looking down at Sirius. “Well, if the master allows it, this thing has had enough of this and wants to go home.”

Sirius opens his mouth to say something, but Remus just shakes his head and walks away. Sirius grabs his sleeve as he passes by.

“Moony, I--”

“If you want to keep your arm, you’ll let go right now,” he says, low, not looking at Sirius, and he feels the sleeve go limp. He walks straight to the Apparition point, not turning back once, and leaves. He arrives in the corridor of their block of flats, the burnt-out cigarette still held tightly in his fingers, his other hand clenched in a fist so tight it shakes.

Once home, he strips quickly and goes into the shower. There, he pretends it’s the hot spray that is streaming down his face, and not his tears. It’s so easy for Sirius to make him cry it’s almost unbelievable--he’s taken so many insults from other people, so much belittlement and abuse, but no one has ever made him cry as easy as Sirius. On some level, he realizes it’s not only because he’s hurt and upset--he just can’t imagine himself without Sirius by his side, as if Sirius had become a cruel, quick-tempered part of himself. If Sirius ever leaves, he’ll just curl up and die, unable to take care of himself, because he’s never had to learn how.

He feels better after the shower, clearer, but completely empty, devoid of thought or feeling. He goes to sleep in the other bedroom, his old one, where there are no sheets on the bed anymore, just a threadbare blanket he curls up spitefully under with his book. Sirius comes in later in the night--judging from the banging on the furniture, significantly drunker, but he knows better than to bother Remus in his hideaway. Remus listens to all his knocking about, imagining him taking off his boots, his jeans, drinking straight from the tap, hair held back in one hand so that it doesn’t get wet in the process; finally, laying down in their bed and heaving a dog-like sigh.

2.

As Sirius has had his boots destroyed by an incinerating hex, a trip into Muggle London is in order. They look at approximately two hundred pairs of men’s shoes before Sirius decides only black leather Dr Martens are going to cut it for him, so they’ve got to backtrack into the shop where they’ve first seen them. Sirius, predictably, kicks up an enormous fuss around the whole process and has the young shop assistant eating out of his hand. Remus catches the elder one smiling furtively behind the cash register, presumably pegging Sirius for an escapee sheltered aristocrat making a living among the masses, and not being very far off if so.

They get some dinner afterwards and Sirius strong-arms Remus into doing some shopping himself and then sneakily pays for all of his purchases.

“You don’t have to do this,” Remus hisses to him at the cash desk.

“I know. But as much as I love your threadbare yellow jumper, I could--you could--do with some variety.”

“Padfoot.”

“It’s a gift. For--” he looks at his wristwatch, which dutifully informs him about all holidays and name days, “Saint Wenceslaus day”.

“Padfoot--”

“Come on. You’ll dazzle Mr Driscoll at the bookshop with your fresh look on Monday.”

He slings an arm around Remus’ shoulders and leads him back to where the motorbike is parked. Remus struggles half-heartedly. It reminds him all too much of hand-me-downs from his French cousins, well-meant, but still slightly patronizing. It’s not a feeling he wants to associate with Sirius, especially not when the memory of their argument is so fresh.

Sirius apologized the previous evening. He stewed in his anger throughout the day--Remus was out running some errands for the Order, but he could feel it even at a distance--and appeared, repentant, around dinnertime, bearing a hot tikka masala and a bunch of literary magazines for Remus. He stared contritely at the floor and dripped rainwater from his hair. Remus had forgiven him already, but did not stop him, because he wouldn’t miss a chance to see Sirius grovel.

“I’m sorry for being such an oversensitive wanker. And a complete arse. I didn’t want to hurt you, Moony.”

There was a thousand things he could say to that, but instead he nodded and accepted the bribe. Sirius came closer, still wet, his earrings glistening in the dim light of the hall, a faint blush high on his cheeks, and there was nothing easier in the world than to wrap his arms around Sirius’ neck and kiss him soundly, right then and there, in the corridor of their shabby flat. Sirius grabbed him by the waist and pressed them together so abruptly their teeth clacked together, and Remus laughed, as if Sirius transmitted some of his usual exuberance to him through osmosis. The tikka masala had gone cold by the time they got to it.

When they arrive home from the city, there’s an owl waiting at the window. It’s one of Dumbledore’s.

“I hope it’s not for me,” Sirius groans. The owl pecks his hand away when he reaches for the letter. “All right, all right. Get it yourself, Moony.”

Remus opens the letter with a feeling he can only describe as dread. Dumbledore never writes them directly unless it’s really serious, and this must be, because the message contains an invitation for tea and lemon cakes tomorrow.

“I’ll need to go,” he tells Sirius, who groans again. “Tomorrow, early afternoon. Tell Prongs I really wanted to make it to dinner.”

“What, you’re not enjoying my cooking?”

“You could learn a thing or two from James.”

Sirius gasps in mock offense, but doesn’t push it any further. It’s a familiar conversation, both in text (James does make a godly tandoori chicken) and subtext (there’s no saying no when Dumbledore asks you over for tea).

Later in the evening, when they’re on the sofa, he reads such an evocative sentence in his Brontë that he needs to lay the book aside for a minute. He looks at Sirius’ sharp profile and ponders the looming sense of finality:_ what if this is the last day we spend together, just sitting on this dumb sofa_, and shifts uneasily where he’s reclining against the armrest. _What if Dumbledore ships me off somewhere deathly tomorrow or Sirius finally faces off against Bellatrix in a field somewhere and that’s it_. He draws a deeper breath, suddenly all the more aware of how his foot is resting against Sirius’ thigh. Sirius is sprawled comfortably, knees wide apart, engrossed in what is happening on the screen, completely unaware of the abyss that has just opened on the other side of the sofa.

He slides his foot down Sirius’ thigh and Sirius absentmindedly grabs his ankle and rubs it. Remus persists: he wriggles his foot out of Sirius’ grasp and moves it up Sirius’ thigh with specific intent. Sirius glances at him, eyebrow quirked.

Remus’ foot moves seemingly of its own accord: it pokes Sirius in the soft flesh under his ribs and then slides into his lap, where it pushes down. Sirius hisses and presses it down with the palm of his hand, his eyes never leaving Remus’. He’s getting hard. Remus swallows, amazed at the liberty to do this and dizzy with the power he’s wielding at the same time.

He puts his book down on the floor and lets his legs fall open. Sirius’ eyes rake over his body, which is a miracle in itself: that Remus’ knobby knees and skinny arms and scarred chest pose any attraction to easily the most handsome man he has ever seen in his life, but they do, apparently, as Sirius often and eagerly proves to him with his mouth and his hands and his body. It’s hard to imagine they used to be so innocent back at school, bodies pressed close under James’ cloak or a shabby blanket, huddling together for warmth. Slipping into bed in the dark to whisper fervently about nonsense that seemed of utmost importance back then. Sirius helping him dress after the full moon, hands gentle on his aching limbs. Their friendship was different than James and Peter’s, true, or even James and Sirius’, but it used to haunt Remus that apparently the line between brotherhood and irrepressible want was so terribly thin.

Sirius sets the remote aside, pushes Remus’ foot away and crawls up the sofa on his hands and knees. He blocks out the light from the lamp. They’re nose to nose, close enough for Remus’ eyes to cross when he looks at the imperious arches of Sirius’ eyebrows, the petulant curve of his lips, the dark stubble on his jaw.

The things he wants to say bubble up in his throat, nearly choking him, but none of it seems safe or smart or good enough to say, and what comes out eventually is raw and way worse:

“Love me.”

Sirius frowns down at him and lets out a shaky, tobacco-smelling breath.

“I do,” he says softly. “I will.”

He surges up to kiss Sirius the moment Sirius leans down to do the same and they meet in the middle. Depravity and debauchery ensues: Sirius sucks him off obscenely--Remus holds his hair up to see his face when he’s doing that--and then they rut against each other, trousers undone, shirts hitched up to their armpits, panting loudly against the backdrop of whatever film Sirius has been watching. Remus holds Sirius’ head to his neck convulsively as he comes, eyes wet and shut tight, embarrassed about his soppy confession earlier. He doesn’t want to be so needy, so dependent on Sirius; it can’t be all that attractive.

In the morning, they lie in bed until the last possible moment Remus can get up to get ready. When he’s busy in the bathroom, Sirius sits on the windowsill in his jeans, smoking morosely and listening to _Led Zeppelin III_. It’s a buttered-toast-for-breakfast kind of day, judging from Sirius’ mood, and Remus swallows three pieces while combing his hair to look at least a little bit respectable for the Headmaster. Sirius hands him his coat and watches him from the doorway for an uncomfortably long time, and Remus’ back itches.

He Apparates outside of Hogsmeade and walks the rest of the way under a Disillusionment charm, careful to cover any tracks. It’s a brisk walk, it being a lot colder in Scotland than in London already, and he arrives at the castle hurried, red-faced and blowing warm air into his hands since he’s forgotten his gloves.

Dumbledore is waiting for him outside. He’s wearing violet robes and a fetching purple hat. It’s a little bit difficult to resent him in this ensemble and Remus suspects that’s the whole point.

“Good afternoon,” he says with a polite nod and a reflexive smile.

“Why good afternoon to you too, Remus. Thank you for meeting me. Shall we take a quick walk?”

“Yes, by all means.”

He watches Dumbledore out of the corner of his eye, to try and spot the moment he cloaks them in magic, like they’ve challenged each other with Sirius to, but no such luck. It’s like the old man silently wills those spells into existence.

“I’ve called you here to discuss something of a rather sensitive nature,” Dumbledore says, hands clasped behind his back like he’s inspecting his flowerbeds and not debriefing Remus on a secret mission. “And I’d like to ask for your utmost discretion on this.”

“I always--”

“And by that I mean even your closest ones.” The old man looks at him over his glasses and Remus cringes internally. It’s like he knows. “It is crucial to play our cards very close to the chest with this one.”

“I understand.” _And hope it’s not going to be something utterly horrible_.

“Thank you, Remus. I knew I could depend on you.” Dumbledore looks back ahead, at the greenhouses hazy with condensation. “I know of an artefact that would benefit us greatly if recovered. You might, however, face some competition on the way.”

“What is it? The artefact?”

“It is a Scottish grimoire,” Dumbledore explains and his eyes twinkle at Remus’ incredulous snort. “It is obscure, I admit. Very old, very compelling to individuals obsessed with heritage, local sources of magic and such.”

“How much of that competition may I expect?”

“Not much, if my predictions are right. If you find that not to be true--retreat. Do try to keep an open mind when you’re there. I have a feeling this can give us quite an advantage.”

_Keeping an open mind_ and _advantage_ in one utterance together are old-man code for spying, which Remus recognizes painfully easily.

“What’s the time frame?” he asks, like a character in a John le Carré novel.

“Until sunrise tomorrow. You may want to drop by home to get a warmer jumper, since it can get drafty in the Hebrides.”

Remus forces himself not to scowl at that and probably arrives at a slightly pained expression. He hates Scotland as it is, even without venturing out to the middle of the fucking sea, and hates the idea of spending the night away from his bed even more, but this is his life, apparently, running errands for a powerful wizard who doesn’t have time to freeze his arse off on a remote Scottish island.

“This seems like a recovery run,” he remarks, building up to the sacramental question. “Is there any particular reason why I should be the one to do it? Not for lack of will, of course--”

“Yes, unfortunately.” Dumbledore clears his throat and makes a sharp turn into the direction of the castle, so Remus is left looking at his back. “It is desecrated ground.”

Ah, there it is. The customary mission for the token Dark Creature. He smiles and nods, because screaming and throwing his hands up would not change a thing. Dumbledore gives him a portkey and a self-destruct parchment roll with a map, a rough sketch of the grimoire itself and some vague notes on how to retrieve it. He commits them to memory on his walk back to Hogsmeade and when he folds them back up, they catch fire and burn without leaving any ash.

Sirius has already left by the time he gets home: his leather jacket is gone from its hook, the keys to the motorbike missing from the little shelf in the hall. Remus dresses in layers and makes himself cheese-and-ham sandwiches in the silent half-light of the kitchen. He also puts the kettle on but hesitates when reaching for the thermos, because it doesn’t seem right to take warm tea with him on a spy-slash-recovery mission, but then it’s the Hebrides and he’ll need keep watch throughout the night, probably, and warm tea will be his salvation. He tucks the sandwiches, the thermos, the guidebook and some reading into his worn messenger bag and paces around the living room, tempted to drop by the Prongses’ first, see his friends, say goodbye to Sirius properly, but it’s too much hassle, not to mention the risk, and he would be doing it for what, a peck on the cheek, a brief hug? No.

He sits down on the couch in their living room and waits for the portkey to activate while the encroaching darkness of the evening swallows everything: their bookshelf, the TV set, the record collection, the rickety cupboard where Sirius stores his work stuff, the laundry they haven’t gotten around to fold in days and finally--himself, like a slow flood. Then the portkey comes on, grabs him by the navel and drags him away from London and into the intense kind of dark that only very remote places have.

It’s chilly. The wind is blowing so hard Remus almost keels over. He’s very obviously in the Hebrides, more specifically: the island Hirta, in the windswept archipelago of St Kilda, which, according to what he read quickly in the guidebook, was abandoned by all its inhabitants in the thirties. Shivering in the middle of their desolate village now, he can definitely understand why.

The row of stone houses goes across the meadow, at least as far as he can see in the dark. There are some other structures around, possibly dilapidated blackhouses, or just walls, or some kind of embankments. The sea is near, the waves lapping against the beach at a murmur. Further out, jagged crags line the bay and the shadow of the hill looms over the former village.

It’s unsettling. He draws a shaky breath, presses the bag closer to himself and makes a beeline for the nearest house. The doors, or what’s left of them, are wet and soft to the touch, rotten through. He almost pushes them forward with his knee, but then something clicks: he should check for wards, damn it, for the presence of the competition Dumbledore mentioned, so he reaches for his wand and scans the doorway before entering. It seems safe, so he pushes through.

Inside, it’s pitch dark, but not blowing his head off, which is an improvement. With a whispered Lumos his wand comes alight, casting a bluish glow on the mossy walls of the cottage. It’s empty, save for a blackened hearth and a lopsided table.

He whips out the guidebook and flicks to the map of the island. The grimoire is supposed to be hidden in St Columba’s Chapel located higher on the slope, outside of the village. The map indicates the presence of ruins around the chapel, but he has no idea of the condition they’re in. There’s not much choice though: he needs to investigate the chapel anyway, and better sooner than later.

He buttons up his coat, ties the scarf more closely around his neck, extinguishes the light and sets out. There’s a mostly overgrown pathway leading across the village, slowly angling up and towards the crags. It’s silent save for the wind and the distant sea, and even his steps make hardly any sound on the wet, mossy earth, which is terrifying, because anyone could sneak up on him and he’d have no idea before the hex hit. Padfoot would be handy here, with his canine sense of smell and human intelligence, but Sirius is not here with him, so Remus shuts that thought down.

He slips on a few stones on the way, but finally reaches the remnants of a wall. In the gloom, he distinguishes the vaulted roof of the stone chapel and a few structures around it, some of which could potentially be habitable, at least for the night. There’s something else there, too: a presence, or rather a suggestion of occupancy that has him shiver and recoil. It’s old and dark and seems to be emanating from the chapel, and it’s probably why the ground is considered desecrated.

The actual mechanism of desecration remains vague to him; he probably missed that class in Magic Theory in his seventh year due to post-full-moon exhaustion or thinking about having sex with Sirius, which was his main occupation that year, after Sirius had kissed him in Mrs Potter’s kitchen during a garden party. It was intensely awkward afterwards for three days until Remus, in a rare fit of pure Gryffindor courage, crawled into Sirius’ bed and snogged him senseless.

_Perhaps you could focus now_. He tests the walled-off area for wards and steals into it on bent knees, alert and cautious. It’s like walking into a place where you know you won’t be welcome if someone notices, but if you keep a low profile you can sneak around undisturbed, and that’s what he is planning to do. This is apparently one of the few perks of being a Dark Creature, and who knows, maybe he’d even be able to walk straight into Voldemort’s hideout without the wards giving as much as a peep. Maybe that’s his next mission.

He explores the assorted structures first--they’re blackhouses, missing roofs and, sometimes, walls, but it’s only when he exits one of them that he notices the wind is gone. The air is strangely still and staticky, which usually means magic is in play, but he can’t pinpoint anything specific. It’s like this whole place is charged with old, old magic, like some of the henges Peter guards at work. It’s making the hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck stand on end.

Finally, Remus stands before the chapel. It’s dark and unassuming, like most of these really old churches, about the size of their flat in London. It’s pitch black inside and he has a distinct feeling that it would not be a good idea to walk inside now. The notes from Dumbledore suggest that the grimoire is going to be retrievable at dawn of the autumnal equinox, which is probably when whatever is guarding it lets off, or when the spell hiding it flickers out for a minute for some obscure reason. This kind of powerful, old magic is attuned to the workings of the earth and the cosmos, susceptible to changes in the magnetic fields, tides, climates. It often disregards people entirely. He knows.

He seeks shelter in the blackhouse that faces the entrance to the area: cloaks himself in Disillusionment in case someone sees the light and puts together a place to sit out of old planks and some moss. This lets him comfortably pull out the guidebook to read up on Hirta and recollect his knowledge about the grimoire. The book is tattered and slightly burnt in one corner--his dad gifted it to him for the sake of doing sightseeing with _his charming friend_, as he customarily refers to Sirius. They haven’t done one day of that since then, but the missions for the Order have taken them all over the British Isles.

It’s not even all that uncomfortable or cold hunched in the corner of the ancient cottage, but in his opinion tea will polish any experience, so he congratulates himself on taking the thermos and fishes it out the bag. He’s pouring tea into the cap when he hears the pop of someone appearing out of thin air on the slope below.

It’s either Apparition or a portkey, either way it means that his competition is here. His hand with the thermos cap full of hot tea wavers awkwardly as he’s searching for a place to set it aside. Finding none, he knocks it back and screws the cap back on making as little noise as possible. He isn’t hearing any footsteps, but with how soft the ground is here it doesn’t really mean anything; he does feel a presence, however--it’s another human being in this desolate place.

He turns the light off and crouches in his corner. As his eyes adjust to the dark again, he sees movement at the entrance to the walled-off area. It’s a lone dark figure that stops just shy of the threshold, wavering. There’s a sizzle and a flash as it casts a spell, probably testing for wards and charms like Remus did, and then it tentatively steps forward. Remus can’t distinguish any details from the distance, but it seems to be wrapped in a black cloak with a hood on its head. _A Death Eater, then_.

The Death Eater explores the area much like Remus did, going into the houses one by one. He starts on the opposite side from the blackhouse Remus is hidden in, which gives him time to fervently think up plans and contingencies. There’s only one of them, which is good on the one hand but weird on the other; they like to travel in bands, but the same could be said about the Order, and here he is, all alone, fingers clenched on his wand and leg slowly cramping from the position he’s crouching in.

Finally, footsteps at the entrance. Remus tenses, eyes narrowed. The figure--hood now off--blocks out the view in front of him, but with the roof missing there’s just enough ambient light to reveal its face: familiar features, arched eyebrows, chin-length black hair.

He’s so surprised the hex he had ready sizzles out instead of firing.

“Regulus?”

3.

“Lupin? What the--”

Remus points the wand at him, _Stupefy_ already forming on his lips.

Regulus raises his hands, but it’s a mock surrender, what with the wand still in his left, held up by the thumb pressed to the palm.

“Wait. What the bloody hell are you doing here?” The curse rolls off his tongue the same as off Sirius’ when he reverts to his natural accent.

“It’s safe to say the same as you,” Remus replies, drawing his arm back slightly. “Isn’t it?”

Regulus looks at him narrowly, lips twisted in part scowl, part smile.

“I suppose so,” he says after a beat. “Are you going to fire that hex?”

“That depends on your intentions. I am not here to fight but I will if I need to.”

Regulus puts his hands down and loosens his stance.

“I can’t even imagine the fit Sirius would throw if I damaged you,” he says and just like that, the mood changes from agents of opposing secrets organizations to something resembling what normal people have, like siblings of boyfriends and boyfriends of siblings.

“I understand that we are still competing,” Remus says, struggling to find his footing in this weird conversation. “But not violently.”

“Apparently,” Regulus replies. “And it would give us a lot more advantage to pool our resources for now.”

“To what?” Remus asks, his voice taking on an unsettlingly squeaky quality.

“To fight the guardian, of course.” Regulus sends him a patronizing glance, looking about the blackhouse. He spots the thermos. “I can see you’ve made yourself comfortable. That’s nice. But why the dumb expression, Lupin, has nobody told you about the guardian?”

“In not so many words, no,” Remus replies. “I suspected there being something… or someone… blocking the way, but--wait, how do you know so much about it?”

“I did my homework,” Regulus shrugs. “Well then, if you agree, we can fight it together and decide who takes the book once we’ve retrieved it.”

“Thanks, but--just one more thing--if you need help doing this, then why don’t you call more of your evil friends?”

“Why don’t _you_ call more of your righteous friends?” Regulus scoffs, but there’s something suspicious in how quickly he fires it back.

“Let’s say we fight the guardian and manage to recover the grimoire together,” Remus says, rising to his feet. He’s much taller than Regulus, who takes a step back to put some distance between them. “How do you expect us to decide who leaves with the book?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll arm wrestle for it?”

Remus gapes at him. He doesn’t have sufficient experience with Regulus to judge how serious he is about it, but apparently he considers the deal stricken, because his wand goes back into a sheath in his sleeve, and Remus puts his away too, admittedly somewhat against better reason. He’s under the impression that Regulus has been underestimated many times before and he’d rather not repeat that mistake.

“Have you been to the chapel already?” Regulus asks, tilting his head up to look at Remus.

“Not yet. I wanted to do some more research before that. There is something there, I can tell you that. What is it?”

“It’s a demon. Bound to this place to keep watch over the book. Probably very angry because of that.”

“And what does the dawn on the day of the autumnal equinox have to do with it?”

Regulus’ eyes flash.

“So you’ve got the specific time. I couldn’t find any confirmation of that. Apparently, the guardian should be weakened then, thus allowing us to retrieve the book.”

Remus nods. It’s just like fucking Dumbledore not to tell him about a wrathful demon imprisoned in the chapel he’s sending Remus to.

Regulus crosses his arms. His heavy lids make him appear sluggish, but the eyes behind them are keen and sharp.

“Come to think of it--how are you here?”

“I was sent to retrieve it,” Remus replies calmly, sensing immediately where this conversation is heading.

“I get that, but how did you manage to get in here and sit in the dark like a boggart without triggering a dozen nasty wards? Unless you’re a double agent--”

Remus can’t help himself and snorts.

“--which would not make a lot of sense, with you being an impoverished Mud--half-blood, but the other alternative…”

Regulus arrives at the correct conclusion and swallows loudly, eyes going wide. He does not take a step back, however, and Remus respects him the slightest bit for it.

“Snape was right,” Regulus says, eyes raking up and down Remus’ body. “You are a werewolf.”

“Snape told you?” Until now, Remus has held Snape in higher regard than Sirius and James have, but apparently that regard was unsubstantiated.

“He told me some bizarre story about how he’d almost gotten murdered by a werewolf by the Whomping Willow.” Regulus makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. “But I took it for the ravings of someone obsessed with loathing for Potter and my brother. I couldn’t believe Dumbledore would ever let a werewolf into the school. But it seems like he did.”

Remus looks at him quietly. He doesn’t foster any expectations that people will behave decently when faced with this kind of knowledge; he mostly just tries to keep as much of his dignity as he can.

“I surmise the deal is off then?” he asks when Regulus fails to continue and just keeps looking at him with an indecipherable expression.

“I don’t see any reason for it to be,” Regulus replies. “I’m just digesting the ramifications of it, that’s all.”

Remus combs a hand through his hair. He’s reeling, both from Regulus discovering his secret and turning his mostly unassuming mission completely upside down. He’d need some time to make sense of it, but he’s not getting that, and there’s no one to give him direction either, no elbow in his ribs, no stern voice in his ear.

He gives Regulus a measured look that he returns with aristocratic coolness, but Remus notices a tightness in his jaw and an overall anxious air. He’s definitely lacking the terrifying conviction of Bellatrix and her ilk, and that’s a good sign. He’s Sirius’ little brother after all: they had the same upbringing, read the same books as children, received the same lectures from their parents. That has to amount to something.

“Shall we go take a look at the chapel?” Remus asks in a thinly veiled attempt to regain agency. “And compare notes?”

“Absolutely.” Regulus nods politely.

They stand frozen for a second, and then Regulus makes his exit. He doesn’t turn his back to Remus for one second, which is commendable and aggravating at the same time. His knee-high boots crunch softly on the rocks strewn about the walled-off area.

They approach the chapel from the side.

“The altar should still be inside,” Regulus gestures with his hand. “According to my research, the grimoire should appear there at--what was it? The first light of dawn on the day of the autumnal equinox?”

“That’s right,” Remus nods. “I assume the guardian will not let us just take it and walk away all willy-nilly.”

“No, obviously. One of us will have to fight it while the other makes a run for it.”

“Fight it how? Hex it?”

“Maybe. I have no idea. My source was very vague about it.”

Remus shifts from one foot to the other. He’s just a 19-year-old bookshop clerk, bound to sip hot cocoa at home, and not to do this, whatever this is, in the fucking Hebrides. And with Regulus, at that.

“From what I remember about these guardian spirits…” He strokes his forehead in thought. “They can be anything from boggart-like to dementor-like. Bugger.”

Regulus looks at him sharply.

“Does my brother know about the lycanthropy? He has to know, doesn’t he?”

Remus pretends not to hear the question. He walks around the chapel instead, even though he knows it’s the same on the other side. The wind blows relentlessly around the enclosure, he can hear it whistling down the slope and in the crags.

“Do you think we could check what it is?” he asks when Regulus joins him at the door to the chapel. He’s ridiculously sharply dressed underneath the black cloak, all sleek lines and expensive-looking trims. “Bait it out here to see what we’re up against.”

“We could.” Regulus cocks an eyebrow at him. “Do you have an idea how to do that, Lupin?”

“I’d expect you to be well-versed in this kind of knowledge,” he says. “What with your background.”

Regulus claps a hand over his heart in mock offense.

“That really hurt, Lupin. Great aim, splendid delivery. I’m beginning to see why my brother might be so interested in your whole--” he waves a hand. “Persona.”

“I can see where he gets his manners, too,” Remus replies, mildly.

Regulus doesn’t answer. He produces a small leather-bound notebook and browses it by wandlight.

“What would you say to a _Sanguini_ spell?”

“Blood magic?” Remus replies, slightly impressed. Sanguini spells are very dark, very obscure and difficult to get right. “With a demon we don’t know anything about? That’s really irresponsible.”

“Well, irresponsible has been my middle name of late,” Regulus says lightly, putting the notebook away, back into the coat. Remus watches his hands but the sharp gleam of a knife still comes as a surprise. “This is silver, so look out.”

Remus swallows, keeping an eye on the knife. It could kill him in seconds if Regulus knew where to stab, but at least now he knows it’s there, and whether Regulus intends to use it, remains to be seen.

There’s an air of threat around Sirius sometimes when he casts or handles dangerous items or simply walks purposefully into a room, not necessarily anger or aggression, but simply an organic expression of power. He feels it now coming off of Regulus as he does the incantation in some very elegant Gaelic, then nicks his thumb with the knife. Remus keeps his distance as Regulus walks up to the chapel and drips blood on the threshold.

There’s a low rumbling as whatever is inside awakens to the smell of a young wizard’s blood. Remus takes an instinctive step back, squaring his shoulders with his wand out. Regulus is a dark silhouette in front of him, but what emerges out of the chapel is somehow even darker, an inky black shroud not unlike a Lethifold, but bigger, thicker. It doesn’t seem to have a mouth, but it growls.

Regulus’ wand fires off a blue electric arc that momentarily illuminates the whole area: the chapel, the blackhouses, the gravel, the two of them. The swirling shroud engulfs and absorbs it, pushes forward towards Regulus. When it touches the toes of his boots, they sizzle, and Regulus backtracks, throwing up a glimmering shield.

On instinct, Remus gets in front of him and casts a powerful banishing charm. The demon roars and he’s hit with a scorching blast of air, but it works, and the black cloud curls in on itself and retreats to its lair.

The smell of sulphur is strong in the air. Remus turns to look at Regulus and finds him gazing at Remus with eyes shining in the dark, not unlike a self-confident boy surprised that someone could knock him down a peg.

“What was that thing you threw at it?” he asks, last traces of aristocratic blasé gone from his voice.

“An _Exilium_.” He catches a whiff of Regulus’ fear-sweat, mixed with his fine aftershave. “That was--when we try at dawn--it’ll kill us if we do it like that, Regulus. No-one is going to find our fucking bodies for _weeks_.”

“That’s very rich, coming from someone who didn’t even fathom its existence until a quarter of an hour ago,” Regulus snaps at him.

“I however fathom now that its existence is apparently quite dangerous,” Remus replies, calming, but Regulus has just gotten into gear.

“How chivalrous of you to protect the little Death Eater, too,” he snarls. “Do you now want to run off to Dumbledore to tell him how you saved the unworthy from the jaws of the beast?”

“What? No, Jesus Christ.” Remus shakes his head. “I just want us to be a little more cautious with the next attempt, that’s all. You suggested we cooperate in the first place. Right?”

Regulus is taking deep breaths and exhaling through his nose. Remus realises he’s forcibly calming himself in a fashion Sirius, the fastest fuse in all of Wizarding Britain, has never really mastered. He expects a slur thrown at him anyway, but it doesn’t come: Regulus is staring off into the distance, a look on his face as if he’s eaten something disgusting but can’t spit it back up.

They retreat to the blackhouse and dissect the skirmish: spells used, their effect or lack of it, the nature of the guardian. Regulus is back to his cool and unaffected attitude, which is so obviously a façade Remus is actually curious what hides behind it and why. In the harsh bluish light coming from their wands the shadows under Regulus’ eyes are deep, his cheekbones sharp. He shivers a little in his ridiculous outfit, so Remus brings out his thermos.

“Tea?”

Regulus shakes his head and rummages through his pockets. Remus is reminded of the flashing threat of the knife, but what comes out of the coat is an engraved hip flask.

“It’s cognac,” Regulus says. “Want to spike it?”

The cognac smells old, woody and smoky; Remus can imagine Regulus sneaking into his father’s drinks cupboard and picking whatever looks the most expensive. He’s conflicted about it--taking any kind of liquid from a Death Eater seems like an idea bound to finish up on Moody’s syllabus for aspiring aurors, but it’s a gesture of rapprochement, which is something they could currently use.

He accepts it with a nod and pours some into the cup, watching Regulus out of the corner of his eye. He takes a hefty swig out of the flask, so Remus deems the cognac safe and sips his tea. It’s potent now, pouring a line of warmth straight down his body to pool in his belly.

They’re crouching together over an anti-demonic ward they’ve just pieced together from memory and Remus suddenly wonders why they never connected at school: they’d be a good match for some late-night DADA essay writing. Then he remembers: 1974, a public argument between the two scions of House Black that turned into an all-out fight the moment Regulus called Remus _a filthy Mudblood unworthy of casting Sirius’ family away for_. Sirius declined to speak to his brother from then on, and Regulus resigned to throwing Remus dirty looks over the tables in the Great Hall or at Quidditch matches.

“Where did you learn this?” he asks, pointing at the ward.

“Why do you want to know?” Regulus arches one regal brow. They’re as thick as Sirius’, but they seem more imposing on his smaller face.

“Just out of curiosity. You’re a fellow adept.”

“I’ve learned it at school.”

“Really?” Remus lets the incredulity bleed into his voice. “You learned summoning demons at Hogwarts?”

“The basics of it, yes,” Regulus replies loftily. “And a little bit more, too. Did you really think you were the only ones to sneak into the Restricted section? That’s really cute.”

Remus laughs and, startled, covers his mouth with his hand. It seems inappropriate in this place and company, but the remark landed a direct hit to the Marauders’ inflated sense of importance, which Remus has always found annoying.

Regulus fixes him with his disquieting gaze, then gives a laugh of his own.

“I just realised that Mother would go spare if she knew.”

Remus isn’t sure what he’s talking about, so he busies himself with pouring more tea into the little cup.

“But then, maybe she wouldn’t,” Regulus continues with a frown. “I always assumed he kept you around to anger our parents, but I don’t think she cares all that much anymore.”

“Maybe he keeps me around for other reasons,” Remus replies, and it’s supposed to be dry and biting, but it comes out very forward and tart, somehow.

Regulus looks him over, his lids heavy. Remus can feel the charge in the air between them, like ozone before a storm, and it terrifies him. It’s the similarity, it has to be. His body responding to familiar features, mannerisms, smells. Even so, it’s not comforting in the least, this suggestion that so much of what draws him to Sirius are his looks and his posh accent. He likes to think better of himself, to have a nobler interest in this: something spiritual, something out of a Brontë novel.

He actually remembers the exact moment when Sirius’ body stopped being neutral to him: it was that summer when Sirius left Regulus and his parents behind and the Potters took him in, and they were all invited to stay over, a glorious two weeks in August in Surrey. They went swimming a lot and invented dozens of nonsense competitions just for the sake of it, and Remus had just won one of them with Sirius, having dunked him under water, and swam away towards the shore. Then, something grabbed him under the surface and he tried to kick it away, pumping with his legs, but it persisted, wrapped itself around him, and promptly turned out to be Sirius. They wrestled some more, splashing wildly about, and ended up face to face, legs tangled, and Remus suddenly reeled from how sensual it was, the slide of skin on skin, Sirius’ hot breath in his face, and panicked, and swam away.

By the time he was back, the rest have already laid themselves out on the shore to dry: Peter sunburnt and pleasantly pudgy, James rangy, with limbs seemingly too long for the rest of his body, getting a deeper brown every day, and Sirius, oh, Sirius: he had just filled out a little in the shoulders and the chest, which Prongs was immensely jealous about, and started growing his hair out, and it lay about his head in black coils. Water glistened on his belly and a slim thigh dusted with dark hair, which fell to the side and jostled against Remus’ hip as he lay down, self-conscious and flustered to the extreme. He could see the golden line of Sirius’ torso and jaw even with his eyes closed, and the fear of the unknown that his treacherous bloody teenage body had just launched him into made him panic-breathe so loud Sirius turned his head and asked _You all right, Moony?_ And he wasn’t, and it’s the same dread-cum-anticipation all over again, five years later and five hundred miles away.

The conversation dies with neither of them willing to pick up that particular gauntlet and Remus moves back into his corner while Regulus sits down cross-legged on the floor with astonishing disregard to his expensive vestments.

Remus pretends to go over his notes while he’s reviewing what he really knows about the young man sitting opposite him. He’s got the Black temper, that’s for sure. He’s quite bright, almost too much so to swallow the Pureblood rubbish without question. He seems to be flying solo--unless his back up is out there on the slope, lying in wait until Remus is in a vulnerable enough position.

But then Regulus would not be making nice with him, not where they could see that. Remus is everything these people hate: underprivileged, half-blood, werewolf, gay, the whole lot.

He glances sidelong at Regulus. He’s fairly sure their mother knows about his, Remus’, existence, if only from the time when she used to talk to her older son. While the news of Sirius’ relationship could throw her for a loop, realizing that her remaining heir might be quite hesitant to marry a Rookwood or Nott debutante would probably deal a terrifying blow. He suspects Regulus’ black-hood wearing mates would likely not be overjoyed at the prospect either.

“Do I have something on my face?” Regulus asks with mild interest, and Remus realizes he’s been staring. “Because if not, I’d be glad if you stopped eyeing me suspiciously.”

“Sorry. That’s--spy instincts,” he says, and it’s somewhat true.

“Is that what you fancy yourself?” Regulus tilts his head inquisitively. “A spy? Like in the jolly forties?”

“Why not. It makes it the slightest bit more bearable. And you? Do you fancy yourself anything?”

He almost hears Sirius say _probably the Dark Lord’s little henchman, or was it low-tier minion?_, but he resists the same impulse.

Regulus draws something in the dirt with his index finger, the fall of hair covering his face.

“I am no one, Lupin,” he says in a distressingly grown-up voice. “All of us are. Completely insignificant in the end.”

4.

They move out of the blackhouse just before the crack of dawn. There’s a thin glow breaking over the sea and the wind has stopped, which slightly improves Remus’ mood, but he still rubs his cold hands together. The warming charms went out an hour or so ago.

Regulus tucks his hair behind his ears and nods decisively.

“Shall we do this, Lupin?”

“Yeah.” Remus shoves his hands into his pockets. “Let’s get on with it.”

They approach the chapel together, then split up to draw the wards. It’s not easy on the gravel, even with the thick, special chalk Regulus brought with him. When they meet again at the entrance, there’s just enough new light to make out more details of faces and outfits and expressions and it makes Remus feel like he’s meeting Regulus for the first time, as if he’s turned into another person in the meantime, or maybe Remus remembered him slightly wrong the whole night.

They nod at each other, and Regulus goes in. He hesitates just the slightest bit at the threshold, which is completely understandable what with the hostile darkness inside. Remus casts a few defensive charms and gets into position, wondering for the umpteenth time just how smart it is to trust Regulus Black. His wand hand is sweating. He wipes it quickly on his trousers.

Suddenly, there’s a weird sound from the inside--something between a roar and a resounding bang--and Regulus comes flying out of the chapel in a burst of smoke and magical energy, arms flailing, cloak aflutter. _Sirius is going to kill me if he dies_, Remus thinks feverishly, breaking Regulus’ fall with a Cushioning Charm.

He turns back to the chapel just in time to see the demon unfurl. It’s bigger this time, and possibly angrier, seeing as it roars and breathes fucking fire at Remus. He throws up a quick shield and shoots a few jinxes at it, moving back towards the blackhouses, aiming to draw it away from the chapel. He glances quickly at Regulus, who is, sure enough, gathering himself off the ground, but slowly. Much too slowly.

“Go!” he yells at Regulus, dodging the balls of flame the demon spits at him every other second. “Go get it! Now!”

That unfortunately turns the demon’s attention to Regulus. Remus can swear that it switches targets with something akin to glee, and roars a horrible funnel of flame straight at Regulus.

A powerful shield charm deflects the fire, splitting it two ways, and through the smoke and the wavering translucent surface of the shield Remus can see Regulus straightening up and--and casting, since his lips are moving. His expression is equal parts haughty and incredulous, as if he couldn’t believe that someone was bold enough to attack him this way. Their eyes meet and Remus knows: this is the moment.

He launches into a run, wand clutched tightly in his hand. It’s pitch dark in the chapel--_Lumos_!--and now he can see the ugly stone altar up front. He comes to a stop before it, but the bloody grimoire is nowhere to be seen. There’s not much in terms of decor in the medieval chapel, just the altar and a few shallow alcoves, and Remus frantically searches all of them--in vain.

Outside, the demon is raging and Remus hopes to all that is holy that Regulus has taken refuge behind one of the wards they’ve set up, because that’s the only way to survive the onslaught and give Remus the time he needs.

He stands in the middle of the floor and swivels, scouring the rough stone walls of the chapel with uncloaking spells at random, and then it strikes him: t_he dawn of the day of the autumn equinox_; the crack of dawn, the first light, like at the Loughcrew megalithic structure, when the sun is at the right angle to reach the tunnel. He squints at the sun outside--it is too low to reach them in the chapel and they don’t have time to wait, there’s no time at all--and casts _Apricum_.

The moment the sunlight from his wand reaches the altar, the grimoire materializes in a blue flash of light. Remus grabs it, turns on his heel and runs out--or, nearly does, because at the threshold he’s suddenly facing a huge angry swirling cloud that roars at him.

He Disapparates, and reappears some thirty feet away from the entrance to the chapel. He’s whole, hasn’t splinched himself, and the grimoire is still tucked under his pit.

“Lupin!” Regulus grabs his arm. His eyes are huge in his sooty face. “Let’s go!”

“I’m not sure if I--” he starts, but Regulus side-alongs him without warning. They land in soft grass just outside the village below. “Oh, fuck.”

Remus falls to his knees, nauseated by two sudden Apparitions in a row; thankfully his stomach is empty, so he heaves twice but doesn’t throw anything up.

He looks up. Regulus is leafing through the tome with a curious expression on his face.

“All this ado about something like this,” he says, quite collected for someone who has just fought for his life. “I can hardly understand anything. It’s all in this bizarre Latin shorthand.”

Remus wipes his forehead and looks up at the chapel. The guardian doesn’t seem to be pursuing them down the slope, which is an enormous relief. He would have never recovered this grimoire alone. They’ve barely made it together, as it is.

He tilts his head up to look at Regulus. It suddenly seems like too much of a coincidence that Regulus arrived here on the same night without any back-up, so well-behaved, so willing to collaborate. As if someone expected them to tag-team it, as if they were set up to meet and succeed together.

If this is actually a plan of Dumbledore’s, it’s not exactly too sophisticated in itself, but the amount of knowledge and forethought required to outline it still amazes and slightly terrifies Remus. There are other possibilities, sure--it really is a coincidence or perhaps he’s a pawn in the Dark Lord’s machinations, not the old man’s, who knows--but Dumbledore’s request to keep this from Sirius is what hints at his foreknowledge.

And now--how do you tell if someone is evil just by looking at them?

Regulus catches his gaze and holds it. There’s something unnerving about the steely resolve Remus sees in his eyes: Sirius is stubborn and bold, a Gryffindor through and through, but he can sometimes lack willpower, his brother however--one Sirius has on various occasions called _spineless_\--seems to have it in spades.

“This is pathetic,” Regulus says, extending a hand. “Get up. I don’t want to spend any more time here than I have to.”

Remus accepts the proffered hand and gets to his feet, which changes his optics significantly, as he is now looking at Regulus from above. His hair has a neat parting in it and a few strands are singed.

“This--this turned out to be not at all what I expected,” Regulus says, presenting him with the book. “What a waste.”

It is so transparent, what he is doing, that Remus has to forcibly stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“You’re giving it to me.” He makes no move to take it. The wind starts up again, pushing his hair into his eyes.

“No, I’m determining I’ll have no use for it and letting you take it. Unless you were only here for the scenery, but somehow I doubt that.”

Remus looks at the chapel, then at the sea in the distance, then the ground between their shoes: Regulus’ dragonhide and his suede ones. Something is coming over him, this jittery, hot feeling he never knows what to do with and that always has Sirius overly excited and telling him _go with it, Moony, do it, see what happens_.

So he sticks out his hand as if to shake on a deal. It’s unlike anything he’s ever done in his life. He feels like he’s suddenly channeling James Potter.

“Come with me,” he says.

“What?” Regulus snorts inelegantly.

“Come with me. You don’t have to do this all by yourself. It has to be terrible all alone.”

Regulus stares at him, completely dumbstruck for a moment, and then a shadow passes over his face.

“C-come with you and what? Stay with you and Sirius in your little love nest? Can you imagine? He’d kill us with laughter. And then me with a curse.”

“No, he wouldn’t. Well, I’m not saying he wouldn’t resist throwing an epic fit, first, but he’d see reason. I’m sure.”

“You don’t know him like I do.”

“Don’t I? You spent the first ten years of your life together. We’ve spent the next ten, and I know him. He might not show it, but he does care about what happens to you.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does.” Regulus lets out a miserable laugh.

“No, he does. He wouldn’t want you dead in a ditch somewhere. And that is going to happen if you go about it yourself, Regulus. This is--this is insanely dangerous, what you’re doing. Please, let us help you.”

Regulus shakes his head, clearly still trying to digest what he’s just heard. He hasn’t denied it, so Remus congratulates himself briefly on his instincts, but then something twists in his gut. He will have to tell Sirius about this, no matter which way this goes, and Sirius’ reaction, as always, will be a gamble. That is why Dumbledore forbid him from telling.

“I’m sorry, Lupin,” Regulus says suddenly. His back is ramrod straight, his chin up in an expression so imperial it could put some of his haughtier ancestors to shame.

“What for?”

“This.” Regulus raises to his tiptoes, grabs Remus by the neck and kisses him full on the mouth. His lips are chapped, and he’s trembling slightly, and it’s both very like and unlike kissing Sirius. There’s a desperate edge to it, as if he’s opened the door just a crack on some great, yawning, desolate pit hidden usually by the Slytherin snark and aristocratic cool, but he pulls away before Remus has a chance to really understand it or react to it. “I just wanted to know what all the fuss was about.”

And with that, he Disapparates with a loud pop, leaving Remus standing there with the grimoire tucked under his pit and Regulus’ spit drying on his lower lip.

It takes him at least a minute to gather his bearings. He wipes his lips with his hand and stares it at it as if it offended him somehow. This is what happens when he _goes with it_, apparently: Sirius’ brother, who is defecting from the Death Eaters, kisses him and leaves. No: turns down his offer of help, kisses him and then leaves abruptly, because that’s what actually transpired.

He manages to pace a trampled circle into the grass, worrying on his thumbnail, before he remembers the portkey to Hogsmeade could come on at any second. He fishes it out of his bag and stands there in the meadow like a pillock for at least ten minutes before it activates and tugs him back to Scotland.

He lands just outside of Hogsmeade. It’s early morning and the air is chilly and refreshing. Remus feels transported to his late Hogwarts years, when this time and location would mean waking up bare-arsed in the forest the day after the full moon.

The walk to Hogwarts is jittery and brisk. Hagrid lets him in, a little surprised at the sight of him at this hour of the day, and Remus makes a beeline for Dumbledore’s office. He passes a group of students headed for the greenhouses, which would normally be an opening for a bout of nostalgia, but today is marked by hurry and distraction. Some of the things Regulus has said circle around his head like swallows before a storm:_ I always assumed he kept you around to anger our parents. I just wanted to feel normal for a few hours. Are you going to run off to Dumbledore to tell him how you saved the unworthy from the jaws of the beast?_

When he arrives at the third-floor corridor housing the entrance to Dumbledore’s office, the stone gargoyle raises its paw to show Remus to wait. Remus sighs and tries to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, but it’s just as hard as it was back at school when they were trying not to get caught sneaking around. Fortunately, no one comes by and in about ten minutes Minerva McGonagall exits the office.

“Good morning, Mr Lupin. I haven’t seen you in a while, I hope everything is in order?”

“Absolutely. Always a pleasure, Professor.” They exchange furtive, co-conspirator smiles as they pass at the foot of the stairs, and then Remus jogs up the steps. Out of the four of them, he’s always been her favourite, despite James and Sirius’ far greater talent at Transfiguration.

The oaken doors to Dumbledore’s office are open and he’s sitting at his desk inside. Remus is relieved to see a teapot and biscuits laid out on a tray for him, but first things first.

“Good morning, Headmaster.” He takes the grimoire out of the bag and lays it on the desk. Dumbledore’s eyes twinkle behind his glasses. “I have managed to retrieve the artefact.”

“That’s quite an accomplishment, Mr Lupin, thank you. Why don’t you sit down and help yourself to some breakfast. You look like you could use it.”

_Well, you made me skip dinner at James’ and breakfast that Padfoot would have made me this morning_, he thinks, face frozen in that polite expression, but he sits down and wolfs down some biscuits, since he hasn’t eaten since yesterday evening. Meanwhile, Dumbledore looks through the grimoire, turning the pages with a lot more care than Regulus did.

“I came across Regulus Black on Hirta,” Remus says, once the biscuits are hastily chewed and swallowed. “He was quite eager to cooperate. We have actually retrieved the book together. What is curious, he ceded his claim to it afterwards.”

“What do you mean by _ceded_?” Dumbledore asks, making no comment on Regulus being there, as if it was at this point just a fact.

“He effectively gave it to me. After a challenging struggle with the guardian whom I, by the way, did not know about,” he adds innocently.

“I was sure you would sort it out, Mr Lupin,” Dumbledore says with a lop-sided smile. “On the topic of Mr Black--the younger Mr Black, that is--has he shared any interesting information with you? Or shown any willingness towards switching sides, perhaps?”

Remus hesitates. _Are you going to run off to Dumbledore?_

“I have a feeling he has defected from… his side,” he says. “He has given me the book as a sign of good will, but he seems to be afraid of both retaliation from their side and distrust from ours. He is working alone at the moment. Have you been in contact with him previously?”

Dumbledore takes off his glasses and rubs his forehead with his hand. Remus is under the impression that he has grown a lot older since their graduation and suspects Dumbledore is letting him see it on purpose.

“So you see,” he says eventually, ignoring Remus’ question. His hands come together under his chin in the eternal steeple. Remus detests the steeple. “The younger Mr Black’s situation is quite a delicate one, which prompts me to reiterate the need for this to be kept secret.”

“I have to tell Sirius about this.” Remus slides to the edge of the chair.

“You shan’t tell the other Mr Black about this,” Dumbledore corrects him gently, as if he were rectifying a mistake Remus made in his ignorance. “Their relationship has been quite volatile of late and I am concerned about Sirius’ penchant for brash reactions. One ill-advised letter could ruin what progress has been made.”

Dumbledore is right about that, but. But.

“It’s his brother,” Remus says, looking the old man straight in the eye. “He might be in danger. He’s just eighteen, for pity’s sake.”

“I am well aware of that. And you have done your part well, Remus. You’ve got an uncanny ability to invoke trust and it seems you have done just that with the younger Mr Black. We cannot, however, drag reluctant eighteen-year-olds bodily to the Order. Not everyone is cut from the same cloth as Sirius or you, for that matter. Some people need more time. Some people need proof, or trial and error.”

Remus doesn’t agree: they should be dragging people over bodily, especially wayward younger brothers. He regrets not insisting on anything with Regulus, not slipping his address into his coat pocket. He was too stunned by the kiss to do anything of the sort.

“Is there anything else?” Dumbledore asks, putting his glasses back on. Damn it, it’s always like he knows.

Remus takes a breath.

“No, sir. I will be going. I’ve still got work today.”

It’s true, he can’t skip his shift two days before a full moon, and not because Mr Driscoll would take offense, but because Remus like to show his appreciation to someone who knowingly employs a werewolf and treats him decently.

He leaves the office, no longer clutching the grimoire. He hasn’t even as much as looked through it, but regretting that seems moot, as obviously the book was not the crux of this mission. As usual, he deems his conversation with Dumbledore slightly unsatisfactory, and--yes--he has this unsettling thought that he might be better off without the old man. They might be better off: Sirius and he, or even all of the Marauders, Lily included, of course. But then what would they do? How would they do it? He’s just told Regulus that it’s terrible going about it alone and he knows it’s true; it’s the members of the Order that give it strength, not Dumbledore himself.

He walks to the Apparition point outside of Hogsmeade and--pop--lands on their street. He barely makes it to the flat. The Apparition has left him dizzy and yearning for a nap.

Sirius isn’t home when he comes in; he must have left for work already. There are some leftovers from yesterday on the stove that he heats up and eats half-heartedly, then writes Sirius a quick note and collapses face-first into the bed. It smells familiar, like the spot on Sirius’ neck just below his ear.

The alarm clock wakes him just in time for a quick shower and a change of clothes before flooing to the bookshop. The work shift is a hazy nightmare, made all the more unreal by the fact that just a few hours ago he was fighting a demon alongside a Death Eater, and now here he is stacking historical fiction novels on shelf C. What’s worse, he keeps coming back to what Regulus told him just before he Disapparated:_ I just wanted to know what all the fuss was about_. It’s just like a Black to leave a bloke completely clueless about the specifics of the fuss that was mentioned. It could be Regulus’ bold foray into the world of masculine charms, via Remus Lupin’s mouth, certainly. It could be Remus itself, the wily werewolf who has apparently drawn the firstborn heir astray. It can’t be snogging itself, since Remus doesn’t believe anyone has ever finished Hogwarts without an ill-advised snog in a broom cupboard. Either way, he has no idea.

When he stumbles out of their fireplace in the evening, _Lust for Life_ is playing on the turntable and the smell of dinner wafts through the air. Sirius comes out of the kitchen in a stained apron, his face split in a wide, relieved grin.

“Moony! You all right?”

“Yeah, just sleep deprived.” He gives him a weak smile.

“I’m finishing up on dinner. Get your coat off and come to the kitchen.”

Sirius’ cooking skills used to be abysmal, but they improved all of a sudden a few months after they’d moved in together. Remus discovered _The Joy of Cooking for the Modern Witch_, squeezed into a dark nook in the kitchen, entirely by accident, hunting for an ashtray during a party. When he brought it out, James laughed so hard he spilled gin all over himself and Sirius frothed at the mouth, terrified at the damage done to his manly, leather-jacket-and-motorcycles image.

Remus walks into the kitchen where Sirius is stirring something in a pot and opening a bottle of wine somehow at the same time and it’s either the exhaustion or the brush with death but he thinks:_ this is the best a wretch like me could ever get, Jesus_. The appeal at the end always sounds in his mind like his mother saying it.

Sirius seems to be of opposing mind.

“I started this thinking I was making the best pasta in the world, but now I’m not that sure, you know. The colour--it seems off.”

“Well, you can’t be good at everything.” Remus slips an arm around his waist and puts his chin on his shoulder. The purple sauce does look somewhat off-putting.

“If my fifteen-year-old self was around to hear that, I swear, Moony.” Sirius deems the pasta a lost cause and turns. His eyes are bright and searching. “How did it go? What happened?”

“I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”

Sirius rolls his eyes and reaches for the bottle to wrestle with the cork some more.

“You can’t tell me the specifics. What about impressions? A vague aesthetic, if you may?”

“Um, cold, wind-blown, remote, confusing.”

“No blokes in black hoods?”

Remus makes a face, but Sirius isn’t looking at him anymore, so he adds:

“I shouldn’t.”

Sirius slams the bottle onto the counter and pulls it open with a pop. Remus realises that he’s in one of his moods: he gets brittle, sometimes, and anything and everything will get him going. Remus just spots it sooner, usually. It must be the sleepless night.

“Listen. I’ve been specifically asked not to share, but--”

“Oh, don’t mind me.” Sirius pours the wine and sets the glasses down on the table. “I don’t need to know what you get up to in the middle of the night somewhere cold and windy.”

“This is quite a sensitive matter, so--”

“Oh, a sensitive matter is certainly not suitable for someone like me,” Sirius says in that annoying sing-song tone that sets Remus’ teeth on edge.

“Obviously not if you’re behaving like a child,” he snaps and Sirius looks at him straight on. His mouth and nose are twitching tellingly. Remus is unfortunately well-acquainted with that expression and feels its counterpart forcing its way to the surface of his face, but that just wouldn’t lead anywhere, would it, so he sighs and sinks onto his chair. “Dumbledore made me go to the Hebrides to retrieve--”

“I really don’t want to know at this point,” Sirius says, much too loudly. The off-coloured pasta lands on the plates with a sound plop. “So don’t bother.”

“Sirius--” Remus tries valiantly once more.

“Let’s just eat, shall we,” Sirius says with an air of exasperation, as if he hasn’t just been ridiculously difficult, and Remus looks at his plate of pasta, his only silent witness, and with superhuman effort keeps his bloody mouth shut.

5.

He doesn’t feel things strongly, usually; it’s all muted, dispersed, even the perpetual anger he feels at the world runs cold and deep. There is, however, an exception to that: the things Sirius makes him feel, because Sirius has the uncanny ability to act like a human amplifier, like a tropical storm that comes across all those smaller clouds and squalls and turns them into a full-blown cyclone. What’s curious, he usually feels better afterwards. Remus doesn’t; he hates being angry, because he rages every month, after all, and all it does is hurt him and drain him.

So he eats his pasta, which is actually quite tasty despite its weird hue, and seethes quietly. His parents never raised their voices, even arguing, they just whispered at each other furiously when they thought Remus was asleep, and resorted to silent treatment during the day. He was stunned the first time Sirius yelled at him at school, and privately thought it in very bad taste for someone so seemingly upper-class.

Remus looks at him now, eating his dinner with an air of petulance and wounded pride. They could do this all day: Sirius is a world-champion at detecting slights to his fragile ego and Remus can go without saying a word to him for days, but he’s somehow even more fed up with their fights than with Sirius’ bullheadedness. He’ll satisfy his need for vengeance with not telling Sirius about Regulus, at least for the moment. It even makes a twisted kind of sense: Sirius is not in the right state of mind to know, and as much as it pains Remus to admit it, Dumbledore was a hundred percent right about that. He’d just run off and ruin whatever chance they have at Regulus reconsidering his stance. An aggravated Sirius could make a Buddhist monk snap, much less his troubled, bitter, angry little brother.

He sighs and Sirius looks up at him. There’s colour in his cheeks and a tightness in his jaw that makes him look--which Remus would probably only profess on his dying bed--like a fierce Byronic hero.

“How was dinner at Prongs’?” Remus asks.

Sirius tilts his head, clearly taken aback at the attempt at reconciliation.

“‘T was good,” he replies, suspicious. “Why?”

“No reason. I just want to know how they are.”

“They’re good. Love-dovey as usual.” With every word, Sirius’ voice reverts to its normal cadence. “They bought kitchen furniture. It’s hideous.”

“Will need to see next week.”

“Yeah, you should. They were asking after you.”

They finish the pasta and Remus does the washing up, as usual, while Sirius nurses his third glass of wine, sitting on the counter and telling Remus all about James’ new-found fascination with internal decor. Remus is too exhausted to properly enjoy his accomplishment of managing to keep a stiff upper lip, and he even sways a little bit when drying the dishes.

Sirius jumps off the counter and takes him gently by the shoulder.

“Come on. You should lie down.”

“The wine--” Remus gestures to his glass.

“Don’t worry about it.” Sirius leads him to the bedroom. “Come on, get into bed, sleep this off.”

He could tell Sirius now, he thinks, looking askance at Sirius’ profile. He could, but Sirius would still be difficult, would still be infuriatingly, exhaustingly himself, the row would go well into the night, so Remus doesn’t say anything, just strips and lies down, and Sirius kisses him on the corner of his mouth, unaware of anything and everything that transpired with his brother.

Just before he falls asleep, Remus imagines Regulus on his own. The black cloak billowing dramatically behind him on the wind, those ridiculous dragonhide boots sliding on whatever rocky path he’s climbing. His hair is in his eyes and he has that intense look on his face, as if he’s figuring something out, the way he looked at Remus in the blackhouse.

The day after Remus writes a coded message to Dumbledore. He doubts the old man will share anything more with him, but perhaps he’ll manage to draw attention to one of the pawns on Dumbledore’s immense fucking board.

The weather is actually nice for once, the sky filled with fluffy, rainless clouds that remind him of autumn in Wales. Remus has spent most of the day trying--futilely--to think of ways to contact Regulus that would be off the radar and not include talking to known Death Eaters or Sirius’ crazy family. As far as he knows, there are none, and it frustrates him more than it probably should, but he’s hesitant to examine the exact reasons why.

Upon his return, he ducks into Nisa for some loo roll and pickles and is surprised when he finds their flat empty and the kitchen cold. Sirius isn’t home, despite it being evening. His job rarely keeps him overtime--he works for a chain of shops selling enchanted household appliances. James calls it posh curse-breaking--without having to travel and crawl into old tombs, which is something Sirius does anyway, after hours.

Remus boils water for tea and sits at the table looking over take away menus, but nothing really tickles his fancy. It’s the day before the full moon and there’s a current running under his skin that makes him finicky and frustrated and irritable.

Sirius comes in just as tea is being poured into mugs. He’s windswept and smelling of petrol.

“Oh, hi, Moony.” He shrugs off the jacket and drapes it across one of the chairs. There’s a manic energy about him that wasn’t there yesterday and Remus can’t quite place it. “What do you want for dinner? Shall we go out?”

“I don’t know,” Remus says slowly, looking him up and down. “Where were you, Padfoot?”

“What?” Sirius snorts, leaning over the menus. “Gotten used to being served warm dinner every day, have you? You could get a house elf for that, you know.”

There’s just the slightest hint of anger in his voice that Remus detects immediately as a left-over from the day before.

“We can do Chinese,” he says. “Have you been out shopping?”

“No.” Sirius straightens and flashes him an arrogant smile. “I was running an errand.”

“An errand,” he repeats, flatly.

“Yeah.” Sirius crosses his arms on his chest and nods. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you a thing about it. It’s secret, you see.”

Normally, Remus would roll his eyes and sigh, but today--today he stands up and shoves Sirius away. Sirius stumbles, startled and offended.

“What the hell’s up with you, Moony?”

“You are being childish,” he says, clear and slow, his Welsh accent coming on strong. “And I am fed up with it.”

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Sirius snaps, hands raised in mock surrender. “I’m just returning the favour.”

Remus ignores him in a last ditch resort not to lose his temper. He grabs his mug and makes for the door, but Sirius intercepts him by the stove, and that’s it, the last straw. The mug crashes into the sink and Remus has Sirius by the shirt and pressed to the doorway in a fraction of a second.

They’re really close, chests heaving. Remus holds Sirius’ gaze, which is hurt and resentful and a little bit frightened, and is debating just having it out with him, damn the consequences, since Sirius deserves to know anyway--when Sirius leans in and kisses him.

It’s hard and unforgiving and exactly the opposite of what Remus needs to contain himself. He kisses Sirius back, because how can he not, and it all devolves into heat and open-mouthed panting and hips rolling against hips. Sirius pushes his hands underneath Remus’ jumper and drags his nails down his back so hard it catches on the edges of his scars, so Remus attempts to grab his wrists, but Sirius struggles as if he doesn’t want to be restrained. Remus overpowers him, as he always does, and pulls his arms over his head. Sirius’ body arches like a bow, his red, glistening mouth opening, eyebrows drawing together in an expression of pleasure.

They only discovered Sirius’ submissive streak after moving in together and while Remus was a little surprised by it at first, and felt weirdly inadequate the first few times it manifested, he quite quickly--and frighteningly--found something responding to it deep within himself. He usually tries not to think about what it is and why it comes so easily to the surface just before the full moon, like it’s just a fact, a part of their reality, and he’s aware that it’s a secret of the highest order, one that even James doesn’t know.

He presses Sirius to the doorway with his body and mouths at his neck, biting into the side of it, almost at the juncture of the throat and shoulder. Sirius groans and pushes into him, his belt buckle digging uncomfortably into Remus’ groin, so he decides to do something about it and slides one of his hands down Sirius’ arm and side and then between their bodies to undo Sirius’ belt. Sirius moans encouragingly, drawing his hips back to give him more space to handle his ridiculous, overly complicated buckle.

There’s another Remus inside this one, probably smaller, judging from his high-pitched voice, chiding the adult Remus that this is not the smartest way to solve problems, that they have mouths to talk and ears to listen, but the bigger Remus isn’t very interested in what the other one has to say and uses his mouth to bite Sirius’ earlobe so hard he hisses and snarls. Sirius’ hair is in his eyes and mouth and seemingly everywhere, the stubble on his jaw rasps against Remus’ lips and clean-shaven cheek as they push and writhe against the doorway. In his lust-addled mind he hopes they exchange scents, mix, meld at least the slightest bit, so that the next time he walks into Nisa everyone knows he’s after a roll with Sirius, that they can smell it on him.

His hand barely fits in Sirius’ tight denims and briefs but he manages to get a few strokes in when Sirius butts him with his head.

“Oi,” he whispers breathily, looking up at him. “Will you fuck me?”

It’s a rapid flashback to the way Sirius looked at him when they first kissed, somehow sultry and hopeful at the same time, and so, so very vulnerable, as if there ever was a chance Remus could reject him, then or now. Remus nods, speechless, and frees Sirius’ hands so he can undress. Sirius tears off his clothes while Remus undresses calmly, hands shaking slightly, throat dry. He always feels like this before engaging in carnality with Sirius, as if he needs to prove himself before some invisible jury that will judge him on his sexual prowess.

Sirius turns and leans against the doorway, hair spilling onto his back in thick black strands. His skin is unblemished save for a tattoo he had made last year and a birthmark low on his back. With his shirt off, the remaining summer tan on his arms and shoulders contrasts with the paleness of his back and bottom, and Remus’ hand, when he lays it on Sirius’ shoulder blade. Sirius shivers under his touch and looks at him over his shoulder expectantly.

“Come on, Moony.”

Remus obliges. He has Sirius bend over during prep, one hand on Sirius’ hip, but he’s always liked full-body contact during sex, and once he presses in he slowly draws Sirius upright by the shoulder. Sirius groans and rises onto his tiptoes to make up for the difference in height, but he’s wobbly, the doorway giving just so much support, so Remus props him up on one of his legs and snakes an arm across his chest; an arm that somehow migrates up until it presses against Sirius’ throat.

“Oh, fuck,” Sirius manages, grabbing onto Remus’ wrist. He now has an additional incentive to stay on his tiptoes, and each thrust has him shivering and hissing. At times like this, Remus feels like a different person entirely, someone who routinely performs unorthodox sex acts, someone who is not embarrassed of that terrible bite scar on his side nor his too large feet, who doesn’t give all that much thought as to why things feel good if they do.

And so it must be that this different person that comes up with this sudden, treacherous and utterly vile notion that flashes through Remus’ mind: _Regulus would be too short to fuck him this way_.

His hips stutter and he instantly lets Sirius’ throat go.

“What is it?” Sirius frowns at him over his shoulder. “Moony?”

“It’s nothing.” He leans his forehead on the nape of Sirius’ neck, hiding his face. “It’s okay.”

He pushes back into Sirius, who gasps and rocks back onto him.

“I could ride you,” Sirius rasps. “Do you--”

“No.” He slides his hand back to Sirius’ throat, but gentler now, just a hint of pressure. He doesn’t think he’d be able to stand seeing Sirius’ face now. He tries to rationalize it: it’s the tension, his mind acting up, resurrecting taboos for shock value, not necessarily something he’d actually consider, not anything remotely realistic, so there can’t be any images of pulling on shorter black hair, there simply can’t.

The sex, or rather the inner struggle during, leaves him completely drained. He collapses onto the sofa naked, trying to catch his breath and get a grip on himself. Sirius goes to the bathroom, humming under his breath, and when he comes into the living room in his dressing gown he’s back to being his bossy, smug self.

They order Chinese and eat in front of the telly. Sirius rants about someone at his job; apparently he really had to stay over hours. Remus, in his effort not to think about Regulus (possibly ever again), returns to the Great Fuckening of Christmas 1977, a period marked by some rather poor decision-making on his side, namely sleeping with Augustus Howe. What was it that Augustus said to him as Remus rolled off of him and reached for his trousers? _Sweet Merlin, you fuck like a champ, Lupin_, if he remembers correctly. Sirius has never told him anything of the sort, and he’s only ever slept with Augustus and Sirius, which is not a big control group.

He glances at Sirius’ animated face as he’s talking about an annoying co-worker and nods reflexively. Sirius seems satisfied and lax, still flushed, and there’s a distinct bite mark on his neck that back at school would lead to wolf-whistling and hooting from Peter and James. As usual, it’s difficult to say if he’s still bothered by the argument; with all his talk of Remus being secretive and dissembling, he’s not exactly an open book himself. Or he is, but that book is mostly filler. The real stuff is hidden somewhere deep, below layer after layer of deflections, bollocks, trauma, anger and some more bollocks. Remus has glimpsed the real Sirius a few times in his life, the first and most notable time being the Prank, which made him realize that the real Sirius is not necessarily better than what he presents to the world.

He skips work the next day on account of the full moon, and waits for Sirius to come back from work early. They apparate together into one of their favourite spots in Snowdonia, which is wild and remote enough that the wolf and the dog can run loose.

Sirius lies down fully dressed, hands behind his head, eyes staring straight ahead at the darkening sky. Remus strips, too agitated and dizzy to feel awkward about it. He folds his clothes, sets them aside and sits down next to Sirius. The ground is cold. They must make an odd tableau: Sirius reclining in his leather jacket and drainpipe jeans, and Remus in all his scarred, withered corporeality, side by side on the grass.

He watches Sirius out of the corner of his eye and wonders if he’s thinking the same thing: that when the others will be going to Brighton or vacationing in Spain, for them it’s always going to be a clearing in the middle of the fucking woods or a reinforced basement somewhere, always, for the rest of his life, however long that might be. Just how long is Sirius going to withstand that, what with there being so many bright girls and outgoing blokes in the world that he could parade around? That the could go out places with and show off to his hateful family like_ I know you detest me and disowned me and sometimes try to kill me but look at how well I’ve done for myself without you_? Remus simply isn’t able to play that role, ever, he’s the epitome of a lack of success in life, if anything.

Sirius turns his head to look at him and says:

“It’s taking long today.”

And it is. The first spasms only go through him once it’s completely dark and he’s so fed up with waiting for the change that he welcomes the mindlessness of it for once.

He never remembers what exactly the wolf and the dog get up to during the night and Sirius has trouble describing their canine adventures to him, as they apparently lose all their appeal once he reverts to his human form. The notion that the wolf and Padfoot have fun during the full moon doesn’t sit well with Remus, it never has, but it makes sense for wolf Remus to enjoy Padfoot’s presence, since human Remus has chosen to spend his life with Padfoot’s ill-tempered, narcissistic, fierce human counterpart. Remus has made peace with a lot of harsh truths, but this one is by far the most improbable and perplexing one: despite their fighting and their baggage and their likely terrible future, Remus is completely ruined for anyone other than Sirius.

Sirius heals some of his scrapes on site and helps him dress in the pale light of dawn. He’s endlessly patient on these mornings, untypically so, smiling softly as he puts on Remus’ socks and shoes and tugs him close to apparate home. Remus lies down immediately, too tired and aching to stay upright, but he doesn’t fall asleep and he hears the sounds of Sirius moving around the kitchen and the bathroom, cursing when something bangs onto the floor, then padding to the bedroom with a tray. Remus drinks his potions, takes two sips of tea and falls back into bed. Sirius wolfs down some toast, strips down to his underwear, and crawls under the sheets behind him.

“Are you not going to--work?” Remus turns his head just enough to see a pile of hair and a single ear.

“I am, I just need a kip. Where are those icy feet of yours?” He tangles his legs with Remus’, pressing his warm skin against Remus’ freezing feet. “Mm, just like sticking your feet in an icebox.”

When Remus wakes, it’s dark outside and Sirius is gone. There’s an owl at the window, rapping at the window with her beak. The rapping might have gone on for some time now, since the owl looks more than a little peaky when Remus leans on an elbow and opens the window.

He only has a piece of cold toast to feed the bird, but it seems satisfied with such a meager treat. The letter it’s brought is from his mother: she, as always, wants to know if Sirius is taking care of him--she likes Sirius well enough, but doesn’t have a lot of faith in his nurturing capabilities, and as Remus has never really told her or Dad about the real nature of their relationship, he’s never gotten into details such as that Sirius even warms his freezing appendages with his own post-change. He suspects they both know about them, anyway, and just hope Remus will meet a nice girl and change his mind, or maybe they’re simply in denial.

_Sirius provides top-notch aftercare, Mum. By the way, I snogged his brother, thus succeeding in collecting the whole Black brothers set, and I’d say it’s quite an achievement for a mediocre-looking bloke like me._

He doesn’t write that to her, of course, but groans in frustration at leaving the comfortable, mindless world of the wolf and the change. He really needs to devise a plan how to tell Sirius when he’s recovered enough to withstand his wrath.

He props himself up on a few pillows and writes back to his mother. In his last letter, his father hinted that her health was deteriorating, so Remus swears to come visit soon; he feels bad about not seeing them enough, but they’re all the way back in Wales, where nothing ever happens, while he’s at the forefront of everything in London. Perhaps that’s a poor excuse, but he sometimes feels that it’s safer for them this way, not coming in any contact with the whole thing.

He’s engrossed in Stephen King’s _Dead Zone_ when another owl knocks at the window, one he doesn’t recognize. He opens the window, letting in chilly air that has him shiver, and recovers the letter.

_Mr Lupin,_

_Our chance meeting a few days ago reminded me that we have not had a chance to catch up for a while now. I would like to suggest having lunch on Saturday at the Alley. Looking forward to our meeting -- Yours sincerely, Minerva._

At first it’s kind of flattering to be invited out by McGonagall, but then it dawns on him that it’s probably going to be a briefing, hopefully on the Regulus situation, and even if not then at least he’ll be able to talk to a knowledgeable person. McGonagall has always had a soft spot for Sirius despite him being a nightmare in school and Remus is ready to exploit that.

“What’s up?” Sirius comes in with steaming takeaway. “Are you feeling any better?”

“Yeah, almost like a human being.” Remus curls his legs underneath him so Sirius can sit at the foot of the bed. “I might even be interested in some nourishment.”

“I’ve brought plenty of nourishment. We’ll eat on the sofa?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Pads.”

Sirius leans in to kiss him on the forehead, with his cold lips and outside-smell, and gets up. Remus desperately wants to tell him something, anything.

“I’m seeing McGoogles on Saturday.”

“Oh?” He glances over his shoulder, toeing off his boots by the door. “What’s that about?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Sirius snuffles, a distinctly Padfoot-like sound.

“I’m staking out some place on the weekend, with the Prewetts. I’ve got a feeling it’ll take all night. Oh, well. Come on.”

He traipses into the hall, taking the food with him, and Remus slips out of bed, joints cracking. He doesn’t like the sound of Sirius being sent away with the Prewetts, not because they’re not reliable, but because all three are heavy-hitters, and Sirius has recently been in several situations where he had to fight or at least defend himself. Remus is starting to suspect that it’s on purpose and the notion that Sirius might be on his way to become Dumbledore’s hitman has him swallow a thick lump in his throat.

They eat in front of the telly, watching the news. Images of a military plane catastrophe are being played and Remus tunes it out, loath to absorb any more danger and horribleness. Somehow, they both fall asleep on the sofa with the programme and the lights and everything on, like toddlers, and when Remus wakes it has to be late in the night, because the telly is only showing static. He looks at Sirius, snoring softly next to him with his ridiculous lashes and two days’ worth of stubble, and wonders if anyone is worrying about Regulus at all, and if not he thinks that he will have to take up that job.

6.

On Fridays, they customarily meet at James’ or at a pub for what James calls Marauder Time and what Lily quickly dubbed Daft Twat Time. It’s a much-necessary period every week when James and Sirius’ energies focus on one another, and Remus and Lily can actually talk to each other.

This time Peter is absent--he couldn’t swap shifts--and while Sirius and James rant about some asinine new Ministry policy just a tone louder than they should, Lily updates Remus on their acquaintances. Some people apparently got threats delivered to their doorsteps and workplaces, and there’s been more and more talk of leaving the UK for safer countries. Remus can’t really imagine that happening for them, least of all for James with his Pureblood guilt and Lily with her Muggleborn activism, and if James and Lily won’t leave, then Sirius won’t either, so that’s that.

“You look preoccupied,” Lily says when he’s been staring off into space a tad too long. “Is something going on?”

“Yeah, but I can’t really share at the moment. You understand.”

“Sure.” She smiles and nods, a little wistful. Remus has a feeling the secrecy is taking something away from all of them, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

“But I wouldn’t say no to some guidance,” he says. “Say, er--if you had a chance to, um, rectify a difficult situation but it would mean keeping some crucial information from someone--er, for the greater good of that situation--”

She shakes her head and he fumbles for words to explain it in a way that would be clear but not obvious. Sirius chooses this exact moment to slam his fist against the table and they all jump about a foot into the air.

“Padfoot--”

“No, James, this is completely ridiculous, it is out of this world--”

“You could keep it down a little bit,” Lily says. “I can hardly hear Remus over here.”

“Nevermind.” He gets up and reaches for his wallet. “I’ll go get us another round and perhaps some crisps.”

When he comes back to the table, the topic has switched to the Quidditch World Cup, which is still infinitely better than politics and emigration, so he drinks his beer and eats his crisps laughing at James’ jokes like a normal bloke, not a werewolf with a dirty conscience.

The lunch with McGonagall on Saturday is pleasant; unlike Dumbledore, she at least pretends it’s a social function that only by chance includes a request for Remus to go somewhere disreputable and do risky things. This time, he’s supposed to attend an auction for wizarding artefacts and told to be on the lookout for several items. McGonagall steers the conversation in a way that makes it very difficult to ask about Regulus, and when he finally does, it’s either too cryptic or too confidential for her to provide any substantial reply.

The auction is scheduled to start at seven and Remus is supposed to avoid magic getting there, so he apparates to an isolated spot in Greenwich and takes the foot tunnel to the Isle of Dogs. The tunnel is remarkably creepy in the autumn evening, so he’s relieved to emerge on the other side of the dark river. Mild panic commences as he realises he only knows the warehouse number in a district full of warehouses, but he stumbles upon the right one within fifteen minutes of searching. By that time, the auction has already begun, so he hurries to the entrance and gives his password to a simian-looking man, who gives him a derogatory once-over and mercifully lets him inside.

The space where the auction takes place is filled with crates and an unsavoury crowd. The auctioneer, dressed in an antique-looking navy coat, is on a platform, taking bids for a stained-glass antique lamp. There’s no lamp on Remus’ list of interesting artefacts, so he takes a good long look around the crowd--it’s mostly men, probably wizards, judging from the robes, but he spots Muggle coats and jackets too. The median age seems quite high, which might make him conspicuous, so he keeps to the shadows provided by the wall.

The kitschy lamp goes to an elderly wizard in the audience and the auctioneer brings out a vase. Remus tries to concentrate on its numerous magical properties, but he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. It’s a flash of long black hair in the distance that has him turn his head and look again. Someone buys the vase, and sure enough, Sirius is in the crowd, lighting a cigarette with a snap of his fingers. Sirius, who is supposed to be at home, cleaning, which usually means that he’s sitting on the sofa with a rag in his hand, transfixed by the telly.

An elder gentleman in the crowd takes offense to the smoking and Sirius turns and backs out of the throng. Remus snaps his head to the side, pretending to look at the brute guarding the entrance, and when he looks at the crowd again, he can see Sirius to the side, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets and the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

The subject of the auction is now a cup that might figure on Remus’ list, so he attempts to note down as much about it as he can, which is a struggle considering how rapidly the auctioneer is shooting off facts about its history and properties. He keeps looking at Sirius askance, which has an effect that is twofold: the familiar feeling of his blood pumping hotter in his veins and an odd shiver of suspicion. After an intense bidding war, the cup is sold to a portly wizard in a tophat, and Remus crosses the last t, rams the notepad into his pocket and goes to Sirius.

Sirius notices him coming and his back straightens while the cigarette in his mouth droops.

“Remus. Hey.”

“Hello, Sirius. What are you--”

“Work thing,” Sirius replies immediately, giving him a close-mouthed smile. “And you--”

Remus raises his eyebrows meaningfully. It hasn’t escaped his attention that Sirius hasn’t used their agreed codeword.

“Ah.” Sirius nods, comprehending or pretending to. “Right.”

“Have you come by bike?” Remus asks innocently. “I didn’t see it outside.”

“Ah, no, not today. I walked.”

Remus gives him a quick once over. He’s dressed as usual, but the leather jacket lacks its wear and tear, and the usually frayed jeans looks straight off the rack. Above the collar it’s infallibly Sirius: his prominent Adam’s apple, strong jaw, eyes crinkling at the corners, foretelling a smile.

“That’s a very convincing disguise,” Remus says, leaning in close to whisper. He smells familiar expensive aftershave. “It probably would have worked if you’d met anyone else. Well, perhaps not the accent. You don’t exactly have it down pat.”

“Oh, right.” Regulus says and while the face remains Sirius’, the expression on it is completely unlike him. “He likes to pretend to be of a lower pedigree when with you.”

“I reckon he does it for his own sake,” Remus replied. Sirius has spent years fighting his natural accent and has arrived at a weird and pretentious mix of their regional accents that is nearly impossible to imitate. “Personally, I don’t mind the posh one all that much.”

“You don’t, do you.” Sirius’ lips curve into a lopsided smile that does funny things to Remus’ stomach. “Well. What about the outfit? Does he really wear it all so tight?”

Remus can’t help but grin. The auction is going on in the background, and they could be selling live hipogriffs now for all he cares.

“I suspected as much.” Regulus leans against the wall, hip cocked, head tilted. He wears Sirius’ body gracefully, like it might just as well be his. “So what is going to happen now that you’ve uncovered my clever disguise, Mr Spy? Am I supposed to fear being overrun by your overzealous friends?”

“For one, you could shed some light on what induced you to polyjuice as Sirius.”

Regulus scrunches up his eyebrows, pretending to think.

“It has come to my attention that it might be unwise to appear here in my own person.”

“Yes, I’ve gathered that much.” Remus catches his eyes. It’s disconcerting talking to Regulus and looking at Sirius, and he feels slightly queasy. “But here--what are you looking for at this specific auction?”

“I’m tired of rehashing all of this, Lupin.” Regulus produces a pack of cigarettes and gestures with it to the room at large. “I’m here for the same reason as you are, so let’s listen to what is going on and talk later, shall we?”

He pushes the cigarettes into Remus’ direction. Remus shakes his head, running through the item list in his head: cups, jewellery, artifacts. They must have missed a few items during their conversation and there’s no recovering that now, so it’s best to focus at whatever remains.

He dutifully takes notes while Regulus smokes and looks around with well-practiced blasé. He only perks up once, when a ring is being auctioned off, but he leans back against the wall as soon as the auctioneer reads out its unimpressive history. Remus keeps watching him out of the corner of his eye, wondering how to squeeze his obviously more specific knowledge out of him without dabbling in any dangerous waters.

When the auction ends, they leave together. It’s natural to fall into step with Sirius, follow his lead outside and round the corner where they huddle in the darkness, watching people dispersing among the industrial debris of the Isle.

“So.” Regulus turns to face him when the footsteps and conversations have mostly faded. “You’ve got five minutes, Lupin. At most.”

“You’re looking for specific Dark artefacts,” Remus says. Regulus tilts his head, as if he’s on the right track, but not precisely there. “But the book wasn’t one of them, because you gave it to us.”

“The book I’ve mostly wanted out of the way of certain people.”

“And these items--they’re more serious than your run-of-the-mill snapping books or poison chalices. They’re ingredients for a dangerous ritual, or--or they assemble into a weapon of some kind--”

“The old man’s been really keeping you in the dark.” The corner of Sirius’ mouth twists in a derogatory smile. “That’s what you call him, isn’t it? The old man.”

“Yeah,” Remus admits, grudgingly, to both counts.

Regulus sighs and drums his fingers against Sirius’ thigh.

“This is, admittedly, entirely against my better judgement,” he says. The light from a distant street lamp slices Sirius’ face in half. “But--assist me now and you’ll learn more.”

“Assist you how?”

“Don’t say anything, just appear menacing, I don’t know, loom over him or something. I know you can, you’ve done that to me.” Regulus tugs at Remus’ coat. “Just--take this off, it makes you appear bookish.”

Maybe it’s Sirius’ face and Sirius’ voice, or the Black family’s inherited pushiness, but Remus feels compelled to comply and starts unbuttoning the coat.

“Loom over whom?” He takes it off and bunches it up to hide in his bag. “What exactly are you doing here?”

“You’ll see. Shh, I think he’s coming.” Regulus looks out from behind the corner and beckons at Remus to come closer. “Just don’t say anything. I’m trusting you.”

“Okay.” Remus swallows and in a last-ditch attempt to appear more threatening rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. He’ll have to count on his scars to do the job, and he can already imagine Prongs and Sirius keeling over with laughter when they hear about this.

Remus sidles up to where Regulus is standing with his back to the wall, listening intently. Their arms brush with their breathing, and suddenly it’s so silent Remus can easily hear footsteps nearing their hiding place. Regulus glances at him significantly and launches to the side, grabbing someone by the lapels and slamming him against the wall.

“Wh--”

Remus rounds the corner with an _Expelliarmus_ on his lips. The man’s wand flies to his hand.

“No funny business,” Regulus growls in a very apt rendition of Sirius’ threatening voice, holding the man up by his lapels. He’s one of those people of an unspecified age, bald and rather rotund. “I need some information from you, Burkes.”

Sure enough, it is the owner and proprietor of the notorious Knockturn Alley antique shop. Burkes’ frightened gaze flits between him and Regulus and Remus suddenly remembers his role in this and adapts an off-putting expression as he leans on the wall next to Burkes, his wand jamming into the man’s kidney.

“I don’t have anything with me,” Burkes says, raising his hands in surrender. “I swear. I do not carry money or--”

Regulus gives him a strong shake and slams him against the wall again, with the man yelping and grunting when his head connects with the bricks.

“This is not about money,” Regulus hisses, bringing Sirius’ face very close to Burkes’. “Tell me about the really powerful stuff, not this garbage you’ve been selling here. Under-the-counter, ancient, legendary items.”

“I don’t know what you mean--”

Regulus backhands him so hard Remus winces at the sound.

“I’m sure you do. I’m talking about the Locket. You remember the Locket, don’t you?”

Burkes’ eyes widen. He looks between Regulus and Remus again, undoubtedly trying to place their faces. _Bloody hell_, Remus thinks as various consequences of this flash through his mind, and he presses the wand closer into the man’s side.

“If you want to keep your kidneys intact, I’d answer that question,” he says, pitching his voice as low as it goes. Regulus flashes him a surprised look.

Burkes is clearly thrown by the bodily assault, his eyes comically unfocused, but something finally clicks for him.

“Black,” he addresses Regulus, pushing against Sirius’ chest. “Why in Merlin’s name would you--”

Regulus shakes him like a puppet.

“Just tell me about the Locket and I’ll let you go. This isn’t going to come back to you. Probably. Just tell me!”

“Riddle took it,” Burkes babbles. “He took it and he went away and he never came back, and he took the Cup, too.”

“What Cup?”

“Hufflepuff’s Cup,” Burke admits and sags in Regulus’ grasp. “They would have been our greatest treasures--”

Remus takes a step back and lowers his wand in shock. Burkes takes advantage of their momentary confusion and whips something out of his pocket. Remus barely raises his wand before something explodes in a flash of white, pushing him away so hard he staggers. Momentarily blinded, he feels someone whip Burkes’ wand out of his pocket and Disapparate, and when his eyes finally clear he’s alone with Regulus, who is kneeling on the ground with his face in his hands.

“Are you all right?” Remus goes on his knee next to him, his hand on Regulus’ back. “It was probably just a Flaring Solution--”

“Yeah, it’s just the Polyjuice wearing off.” Regulus looks up at him with his own face, his shoulders narrowing and hair shortening before Remus’ eyes. “Tell me, why do things always explode and burn when I’m around you?”

Remus laughs, unable to find one answer to that amongst the myriad that comes to mind. He straightens and offers Regulus his hand, which he takes with the slightest hesitation. When Remus feels it clasp his, he Disapparates.

The Order has a number of safe points that can be used for sudden Apparition or when pursued, and Remus is in charge of the upkeep of five ones in and around London. He chooses the first one that comes to mind: Rainham Marshes.

“Oh Merlin. What is this bloody place.” Regulus clutches Remus’ sleeve, squinting in confusion. It’s completely dark, no artificial lighting within at least a mile.

“It’s one of our safe points.” They’ve landed under the bridge, ankle-deep in water. “Sorry, it seems to be wetter than usual.”

Regulus disengages from him and rubs his face tiredly. He’s now painting quite a sorry picture, with Sirius’ clothes hanging off of his thinner, shorter frame and water squelching in Sirius’ boots.

“I need to go,” he says decisively, straightening. “Thanks for your help, Lupin.”

“Hold on.” Remus steps into his way. “And this Riddle person Burke mentioned—who’s that? The one with the Locket and the Cup?”

“You should try figuring something out yourself,” Regulus sneers, but without much feeling. “I’ve already shared more than I probably should with you.”

“You’re aware I’ll need to tell everything to the old man, aren’t you.”

“No doubt. Do it. Just don’t try to stop me.”

“Stop you doing what?” Remus frowns. He’s quite familiar with the Black penchant for drama, but it can be difficult to keep up sometimes.

“I’ll need to bring them something,” Regulus says, not addressing Remus anymore. He spins around on his heel and chews on his thumbnail. “And it needs to be something of value. Not something they vaguely know. Not a Scottish grimoire.”

“What?” Remus shakes his head. “Come on, I know a safe place, we can—”

“It’s the only way.” Regulus gets an expression on his face that Remus recognizes in an instant: the single-minded determination to do something reckless and stupid, which immediately makes him understand what’s at stake—if Regulus comes to them unscathed, hands empty, no one will trust him. Switching sides requires sacrifice.

“Just let us--” he extends his arm, this time not to clasp hands or forearms but to bring him in, mostly out of a protective instinct towards someone younger and smaller, but Regulus takes a graceful step sideways. His gaze is locked firmly with Remus’, as if he’s trying to convey something without words, or establish a link, a connection of some kind, and then he vanishes with a pop of displaced air.

Remus has his wand out in an instant. He casts a tracing spell and uses the thin thread of Regulus’ residue magic to point him in the direction of his Apparition. Breathe in—it’s the fragrant air of the Marshes, breathe out—he’s in a back alley somewhere, smelling piss and vomit. Regulus is nowhere to be seen. He fishes for the trace again, but it’s too weak to get a good reading, so he grits his teeth and Apparates home.

He needs to take a moment after nearly three Apparitions in a row and leans against the back wall of their block, breathing deeply. A cat slinks out of the dustbin corner and starts licking its paw in the middle of the alley.

He’ll have to make a report out of it, for one, and he’s going to have to tell Sirius, for another. And Sirius is going to be so bloody jealous about all of this that he’s going to drive Remus barking mad, he knows this perfectly well, he feels it in his fucking bones. The Great Fuckening of Christmas 1977 was after all spawned by a jealous fit Sirius threw after he saw Remus talking to Augustus Howe just a tad too long at the breakfast table, and it escalated until they broke up because it was impossible to withstand Sirius ranting and raving one second and clinging and despairing another. None of that excused sleeping with Augustus Howe, of course, but Remus was so furious with Sirius that everything he felt turned into this huge toxic cloud of spite that finally cleared when he regained his senses in Augustus’ bed a day before New Year’s Eve.

There was more to it, of course, like the power of his sexuality that he had just discovered, and Sirius hating that he did, and that he used it, and Sirius’ anguish over being discarded by his family a year prior, but a better comprehension of what transpired back then does not lessen his fear that they’re going to have a fresher and more powerful repeat of it.

When he enters the flat, Sirius is cleaning the bathroom. Despite all his worry, Remus can’t resist a small smile of satisfaction at Sirius’ aristocratic arse in the air as he’s scrubbing the floor.

“Sirius.” He leans against the doorframe, the bunched up coat in his hands. “I need to tell you something.”

“What?” Sirius looks over his shoulder with a slight scowl. His hair is up in a bun, a few tendrils escaping it and clinging to his neck. “Are you finally leaving me for Latika Patil?”

Remus shakes his head.

“You’re going to be royally pissed at me for this, so I implore you to keep in mind that this is also very good news.”

“Moony?” Sirius discards the rag and gets up slowly, his face tightening in concern. “What is it?”

Remus tells him.

7.

Sirius runs up the street in front of him. Remus struggles to keep up, feet pounding against the pavement in a faltering rhythm.

“Padfoot, this isn’t--”

He knows, on a logical level, that Sirius loves him. It’s just that it’s difficult to spot it sometimes, to point over to a place, a moment, sometimes, and say: this is where Sirius loves me, specifically.

“Padfoot...” He slows to a walk, panting. Sirius rounds the corner and disappears. Remus isn’t quite sure where they are anymore. The buildings look a little bit like Chalk Farm, but a lot of neighbourhoods look alike in the dark.

Sirius has been a part of his life ever since he left home for school, he’s taken care of Remus since they were twelve, and it’s nigh impossible to say where their friendship ends and love begins.

He reaches the corner and rounds it, expecting Sirius to be long gone, but he’s not. He’s sitting on the curb in front of a closed hardware shop, his head in his hands, looking for all the world like someone who should be approached and reassured. Remus knows better than that--for all that Sirius likes to lash out at others and hates being alone, he actually likes to hurt and lick his wounds in solitude, like the dog he is.

Maybe it’s all love, from the very beginning, from the moment that strange dark-haired boy smiled at him on the train and he thought that maybe this whole Hogwarts thing wasn’t all that bad, but that is terrifying, with the implication being that Remus would not know how to exist without it.

A taxi hurtles down the street, its lights cutting across Sirius and painting his miserable shadow on the shop window behind him. Remus sighs and comes up to him.

This close he can Sirius’ shoulders are shaking, so he’s either crying or laughing.

“Padfoot.” He sits on the curb next to him. Sirius looks up at him, his face wrecked, but dry. “Let’s go home. We’re not going to find him like this.”

“Maybe we’ve been going about it arse about face.”

“Certainly, and that’s why it’s not going to work. Come on. I’ll write to the old man and let everyone know to be on the look out for him.”

Sirius looks at him, his open, angular face going through stages of anger, regret and anguish.

“You should have told me,” he barks.

“I wanted to. Then we got into an argument about it,” he says and holds up his hand when Sirius opens his mouth. “No, this time let me finish. Then we got into another argument, one that you provoked. And then, when I actually told you, you yelled at me, so you see--”

Sirius snuffles and stares at the road. His hands clench into fists. Remus takes measured breaths and wills himself to move and, amazingly, it works: he extends his hand and lays it on Sirius’, undoing the fist with his fingers. Sirius glances at it as if he’s surprised.

“He’s getting killed somewhere, Moony,” he whispers. “That swot. My little brother. And we’re sitting here--”

“He’s more capable than you give him credit for,” Remus says, gently, although he’s sure Regulus is up to his neck in trouble. “Come on. Let’s go home. Have tea, investigate the leads. We’re not going to do anything about it here.”

“Yeah, okay. Yeah.”

They get up, hands clasped tightly together. Remus looks at their joined hands--he knows what’s he’s doing it for, but he needs to gather his strength to Disapparate them anyway, because it’s been such a long bloody evening--and then he hears a pop, and an exceptionally miserable house elf appears in front of them.

“Master Sirius,” it creaks and Sirius inhales sharply. “Master Regulus asks for your assistance. Master Regulus does not care that Master Sirius is a blood traitor and broke my Mistress’ heart, not at all.”

“What the--” Remus manages.

“That’s--that’s our house elf.” Sirius drops to his knees. Blood has drained from his face. “Kreacher, where is Master Regulus now?”

“Go to Beggar’s Hole,” Kreacher croaks, as if he’s repeating instructions someone taught him. “Take the west road out of the city to the cliffs, and find the cave. Look out for the water and do not drink anything, Master Sirius.”

The elf squints at Remus and mumbles something insulting at him, and then disappears as suddenly as it appeared. Sirius gets up from his knees, dusting off his jeans. There’s a siren going off in the distance, and they both just stare at each other, incredulous.

“Beggar’s Hole.” Sirius breaks the silence. “Where the fuck is that? Do you have that guidebook with you?”

“I do.” Remus scrambles to find it in his bag and leafs through the pages. “Here it is.”

He points to the map and the picture. Sirius takes his hand again and squeezes.

“Okay, Moony. Let’s go get him.”

_What a day_, he thinks, and Sirius looks at him like he’s an amazing, indecipherable puzzle, and they get underway.


End file.
